Princes Street Edinburgh
This post is inspired by recent events, the last post I wrote, and Annmarie's comment on that post.
It was a beautiful sunny summer’s day in Edinburgh, the lovely Capital City of wonderful Scotland.
I walked leisurely down Prince’s Street.
For those who don’t know it, Prince's Street is a straight very wide road stretching for over a mile or so. On one side you have all the very posh and well-to-do shops, restaurants, café bars and hotels attracting tourists from all over the world. And on the other side of the road you can promenade on the sidewalk overlooking the marvelous Prince’s Street Gardens spreading all the way up the volcanic rock upon which stand the imposing Edinburgh Castle commanding a magnificent view of the whole City from up there near the edge of the sky.
I walked slowly all the way to the Walter Scott Memorial and stood there for a while listening to a Scotsman in full tartan costume surrounded by tourists clicking their cameras whilst he played his bagpipes.
After a rendition of Scotland the Great, Amazing Grace and a few more Scottish tunes I decided to go down to the Gardens and settle down on a bench to read my newspaper.
A few moments later a young mother dressed in short trousers and a boob tube sat on the bench opposite me with her little son aged about 18 months or so.
In the UK we call it a boob tube, but I understand that other countries might call it a tube top. It’s a shoulderless sleeveless tube that wraps around a woman’s breasts and defies gravity by way of elastic bands at the top and bottom of the garment.
Anyway, that aside, the young lady sat opposite me talking to a friend on her cell-phone whilst her toddler ran up and down the path and every so often ran up to her and giggled hysterically. I ignored them and kept reading my paper.
Every so often the young lad would climb on the bench and kiss his mother on the cheek and say “Love you mama!”.
She smiled and kept talking on the phone.
As he stretched forward to kiss his mother’s cheek the little boy lost his balance and as he slipped he got hold of his mother’s tube top and pulled it right down. She dropped her phone to the ground and had seconds to react on whether to cover up her modesty or grab the child before he fell head first on the hard tarmac. Fortunately mother’s instincts came to the fore and she grabbed the child who got startled and started crying. She sat him beside her and then pulled up her top back in place.
She smiled at me and I smiled back as I picked up her cell-phone from the ground.
When a woman dresses provocatively and distracts a man and raises his blood pressure; who has sinned the most? The man or the woman?
Could it be argued that the man is responding to a natural human instinct and therefore he has not sinned at all?
This of course applies to women too. When they see a handsome man (like me) and their heart flutters somewhat, can they be forgiven for reacting to natural instincts?
When is a sin not a sin in such circumstances?
When someone accidentally moons you when their jeans slide down a little (as has been witnessed by a reader of this Blog); or when a skirt is caught up by the wind (as has happened to me HERE); should we run to the Confessional and tell the priest about it?
The art world is full of paintings, sculptures and photographs which some might consider sinful. Is it wrong to admire them?
If, as suggested my Annmarie in my previous post, you attend art classes and the models are nude. What do you do if your heart flutters a little? Do you tell the priest?
How did the Saints of old deal with mini skirts and revealing décolletés? Did they praise the Lord for the beauty of the human form or did they seek His forgiveness for admiring it?
Plenty of questions for us to ponder in the Comments Box below.
