Gentle Reader,
I have been blessed and thrilled lately to have the joy of spending time with a precious, one year old baby girl. She is absolutely delightful, full of wonder, happy giggles and baby talk. I hope and pray that I will get to be around to watch her grow into a curious little girl, a precocious adolescent, a fabulous teen, and, finally, a wonderful woman.
It does my heart good to know that her parents trust my husband and I to be around her – even to help care for her. It amazes me, the deep love that they each have for her, even when she’s crying or has a less than appealing diaper. I feel as though I’m looking at the world anew whenever she’s around.
And so, right now, I am thinking about the privilege of being in her life…and I am thinking about pornography.
You see, that girl on the screen? She’s somebody’s daughter. She has parents somewhere, who once looked at her with delight. She has a mind that thinks deep thoughts, a heart that beats with unfulfilled dreams. She’s worth so much more than the cash that comes from taking off her clothes in harsh light. Maybe she chose to be there. Maybe she didn’t. It doesn’t change the fact that she’s been stripped of her inherent worth.
It’s not about feeling guilty or defensive; it’s not about pointing fingers. We’ve all got problems and issues that we struggle with – I want to be the last person who ever feels she has the right to think she’s better than someone else. But I think we ought to be real. Women…no, not just women…people who are involved in the sex industry, whether in pictures, movies, prostitution, etc., have been dehumanized. Whether it was their choice or not, we shouldn’t be okay with that. In a nation that espouses ideas of liberty and equality, we should not for on second think that we aren’t hurting anyone. We are. We’re hurting everyone. We feed into the problem.
More importantly, it’s more than high time for Christians to stop believing, thinking, or acting like they are above all this. We aren’t. We, too, get trapped in vicious cycles. So, perhaps we ought to stop touting our “God hates gays” signs and deal with our divorce rates, our adulteries, our pornography addictions. Maybe we should deal with the sexual sin in our own house before we go looking to clean someone else’s.
You see, that girl on the screen? She could be your daughter. Your wife. Your sister. Your friend. We humans, we are so shallow. All we see is the flesh. But there is so much more. There is LIFE.
