Slay the Dragon

Doubtless, you have read any number of the articles circulating concerning the sexual abuse scandal that has visited our Church. It is hard for me to handle the emotions that I am experiencing over the detailed report that was released on August 14 for six dioceses of Pennsylvania. While many of the stories are horrific, and the suffering of these victims unquestionably intense, it is the fact that the abusers were allowed to continue their work for many years that has most shocked me.

However, this article is not written to discuss the horrors, because I believe there are quite a few of those already in print. My thoughts, rather, are directed to the leaders of the Church that I am a part of. My thoughts go to the priests and religious brothers, some of whom I am friends with and know well. My words are meant for the bishops of our Church, some of whom I have worked for in the past and some of whom I would say are holy men of God.

Your Church, and mine, is under attack. You, the men given the character of ordination, are the ones who are called to defend her. You must. You must fight for her with your very lives. You must lay down your pride, your esteem, your power, your prestige. You, and you alone, are the shepherds of this time, and your sheep are scattering. Your sheep are broken, wounded and lost. Your sheep have been betrayed. Some of you have been unaware, it is true, that there were wolves masquerading as shepherds. Some of you truly did not know that there were sheep being offered up on the altars of sensual idolatry and lust. Some of you did.

What has taken place is not what we read from the time of Christ, when he sees the lost flock of Israel and says that “they are like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). Rather, the Church is currently full of sheep who do have shepherds. Shepherds who need to do some shepherding. First and foremost, they need to get rid of the wolves!

I have been a member of the Catholic Church since I was a few months old. I have loved her all of my life. I have studied her teachings, worked in her missions, served in her churches, and I am now striving to raise my children to love her too. However, I also know the pain of abuse. I have seen friends walk away from the Church, and from faith in God, because of the abuse of clergy. I have seen families broken by this evil. I have heard their question ring in my ears, “If God is really love, how could he allow this to happen? How could he allow him to be a priest?”

The priests, brothers, deacons, and bishops who are still shepherds and not wolves find a Church full of sheep who are limping, bleeding, and badly in need of protection. It is now or never. You must defend her! You must root out the evil of these wolves and eradicate it from the Body of Christ. You must speak boldly to your people about this evil. You must assure them that you are determined to protect them. Where are the defenders of the faith in this generation? It is time to stand up! It is time to challenge the hierarchy of the Church to put on the sackcloth and ashes. It is time for a Year of Penance. It is time for serious fasting, for real humility, for Chaplets of Divine Mercy and rosaries. It might even be time for hair shirts and sleeping on stone floors.

I write this on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, and the first reading recounts the vision of St. John, with the woman giving birth while the great Dragon waits to devour the child. We know that Christ is not devoured, and has already been triumphant. However, the full triumph has not yet come to earth, and the Devil is busy doing his best to see the Church broken and destroyed. We need another Saint George, one to take up the banner and sword against this evil serpent. Except, we need many St. Georges, and the banner and sword are penitence and boldness.

Shepherds, tuam memento mori, remember your death. You have been charged with great responsibility – the care of these souls who belong to the Church Christ established over 2,000 years ago. Your obligation is great. You must give an answer for what you have done for Christ’s Bride. Satan has never rested. His work to corrupt this Church is evident. Who will offer him resistance? It must begin with you. Slay the Dragon!

Faith, Hope and Love Remain

Many of us are familiar with St. Paul's words, "So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13).

Perhaps at different times in our lives, we find ourselves gravitating more towards one of these virtues over the other. We need more faith, or we find ourselves in a circumstance that enables more hope, etc... Sometimes it may seem that we experience a deficit of one or even two of these virtues, but cling tightly to the one that we have mastered.

When reading that love is the greatest, it is perhaps hard not to feel that one ought to focus on that particular virtue then. It seems silly to desire what is less than the greatest.

However, the Catechism gives us some insight about the virtues that is helpful:

The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which “binds everything together in perfect harmony”; it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural perfection of divine love (CCC 1827). 

Here we may come to understand that while love or charity is the "greatest," it is the greatest in a way that is not so much a hierarchy of faith receiving the bronze, hope the silver and love the gold. Rather, none of the other virtues can truly be what they are, that is, virtues, without charity as well. Therefore, faith requires love to truly be faith. Hope likewise requires love to truly be hope. We experience true hope when we realize the love that God has for us and place our trust in the truth of that love. We experience true faith when we believe that God is love and has called us into a relationship of love with him. We can isolate these virtues to help understand them and bolster them, but they cannot dwell apart from charity.

This brings a new focus to the times when we find ourselves struggling with one of the virtues. Perhaps you have found yourself facing challenging circumstances that have caused you much sorrow or pain. In these circumstances, it is natural for us to ask God, "if you love me, then why?" Moreover, it is common that we encounter doubts. Doubts about God first and foremost, because he is Love. Our belief system is based on this revelation, that the Blessed Trinity is a communion of Divine Persons, three in one, who are infinite love and who have created us out of generous love. Therefore, we wonder if we have been wrong. Is God truly so good, all good? How can the bad exist alongside the good in a world where perfect love exists?

If one stops on the journey of reasoning there, one will remain lost in the woods forever. It is true, sorrow and evil beg us to enter down the path of deeper reflection and better understanding. Yet, we must emerge from the path on the other side, knowing more clearly the truth that we always knew.

We come to understand that love is not what we thought. Love requires freedom, otherwise, it is servitude or some mockery of true love. Love must be free to give of itself. Love is giving of oneself. God in his truth and goodness created man in true love, allowing him to be free to return or reject the love offered him. Man has the power to sin, and man does. Sin engenders sadness, evil and suffering in the world. While we do not hold the belief that we suffer consequences proportionate and directly related to our actions (you did not get a cold because you cursed at work), we do believe that the world suffers from the effects of sin and that man partakes in that suffering. God allows this not because he is vindictive, but because love is just. Love requires freedom, and so it is just that there be a choice, and it is just that there be consequences to our choices.

All of this is to say that we ought to understand love as a greater thing than "warm fuzzies" or abundant blessings. The love revealed to us by Christ reached an apex at the Cross, and came to fulfillment at the Resurrection. We understand that love is free, love requires justice, love invites us to give of ourselves, love allows suffering for the sake of heroic sacrifice, and true love (that is, love that is the gift of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God) will always triumph over death.

This should therefore inform our experience of faith and hope. We return to those other virtues to see how our faith is strengthened by knowledge (for we learned more of who God is and what love is) and our hope is strengthened by endurance (for we traveled the path of understanding to seek the necessary answers) and we find ourselves more ready to accept the virtues. We can face the challenges and struggles of our lives with one hand holding tightly to the rope of hope, knowing that we must hold on in every storm and never let our grip slacken. We bear the helmet of faith on our brow, keeping always before our mind's eye the truth we have come to know, that great mystery that God has revealed, the Paschal Mystery of Christ. And we hold within our hearts the intangible but great crown of love, the glory of the virtues, which is the buoyancy for us to stay afloat when tossed at sea.

Faith, hope and love remain, and let it be that we work to foster and cultivate each simultaneously, always keeping in mind the harmony that they share with one another, so that we do not doubt too much, nor lose heart too quickly, nor cease to love altogether.

"As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love" (John 15:9).

The Question at the Back of Our Minds

It's an interesting conundrum that we have the luxury to spend time in our day thinking about if we are really using that day well, really "living." It was not so long ago that people simply had to work to live. I'm not arguing that they had a better quality of life, as I have never had to work the earth just so that I can eat. Yet, the stress we create for ourselves in a culture of leisure is interesting. It's as if we do not want to lose touch with our forefathers' way of life, since we know they worked so hard to make our lives possible. Yet, we do not live the same way that they did.

It begs the question, will our grandchildren be worrying about whether they are "living life to the fullest"?

A quote from the HBO "John Adams" comes to mind:
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

So what is it that keeps eating away at the mind, that little tick that you can't seem to get rid of? Or do we not all feel that impulse to "do more"? Perhaps it is a personality trait more than it is a universal norm for man. Yet, I feel convinced that we all have a natural inclination to feel that we must go, or do, or see, or create.

What is this impetus? Perhaps it has something to do with the natural order. Consider our position in the natural world, in the food chain. The dog comes to man because he is in need of a master, just as that dog may very well be capable of being a "master" to sheep or some other herd of animals. Even within humanity, children are not only disciplined because it brings about good behavior. Children need boundaries, need guidance. We carry that need for parameters with us into adulthood. We may obey civil laws, moral laws, natural laws, personal laws - yet we are subject to some things higher than us whether we acknowledge their power over us or deny it. The earthquake, for example, will still shake the earth whether or not we admit that it cannot be controlled.

So if we are over a great many things in the natural world, which we are, such as the inanimate objects and the lesser animate creatures (vegetable and animal life), this dominion requires a response from us. Every relationship requires a response from us. We begin with the most basic of relations - the dependent child to his or her mother. Every relation we have from that point on, whether sought out or "by birth," is one that puts a demand on us. We are free to foster, nurture and grow that relationship, or we are free to ignore, deny and hurt that relationship. Yet, any reaction to it is a response, and so we see that we are never really free from relation as long as we live.

This relation that extends to the animal and vegetable world is real as well. We have a dominion over them. This dominion can be exercised with responsibility or with cruelty, as we know. There are many in our day and age who are very familiar with this dominion, as it is a part of their livelihood. Whether they raise animals for food or grow crops or have some other share in bringing forth natural resources from the earth, they are well aware of their situation in the natural order. They also are aware that while they may be on top of the "food chain," they are still subject to nature as created and natural beings.

I am beginning to think that perhaps some of modern man's confusion with his use of his time and life comes from a detachment from the natural world. I do not mean this to be an accusation that technology is bad or has stolen something precious. I would not be able to share these thoughts if I did not have modern technology at my fingertips. Yet, I do think that we may not realize just how connected we really are to the world, and I believe this may be part of that "natural impulse" that we find stressful or confusing.

The relationship we have to the natural world is present because we are creatures who are born into this world. While we are the only rational animals, the only ones with reason and free will, that does not negate that other creatures are living beings to whom we have some relation - one of dominance but in turn, one of caring and nurturing. It is the stewardship that we have been given for the earth and her creatures that I believe presses upon us at times. I am beginning to believe that it is this particular "demand" made upon us by an existing relationship (to the natural world) that we do not always know how to respond to. When we feel that we need to "do" something, to "go" somewhere, to "make" something or "create" something... I believe this has something to do with our lifestyles that remove us from the natural order.

Certainly, we cannot all go and farm. Many of us do not have the ability, the money, the talent, or even the desire. Yet, there are so many small ways that we can still participate in that dominance and stewardship. Growing some herbs in our kitchen window, some boxed vegetables in our back yard, raising a pet, being part of a community group that cares for public parks and forests, etc... are all small but real ways we still "give back" something. Even simply admiring the beauty of nature from time to time - walking, exercising, hiking, boating, swimming, etc... and enjoying not only the activity but the world that makes the activity possible. Small moments of appreciation can foster a greater understanding of the gift that the world really is.

There are many other just and viable answers to the "question at the back of our minds" concerning what we are doing with our lives and if we are "really living." I am not exploring all of them here. I think the most frequent (and often the most accurate) answer given concerns our relationship with God and our response to his invitation to know him, love him and serve him. But here I wanted to explore another piece of the puzzle, one that I think is legitimate. Perhaps we can begin to answer a larger question by answering a smaller question - that is, by understanding our relationship with the world and its creatures and by exercising our stewardship over them, we can then better understand ourselves in context to God who is the creator of all of these things and ourselves, and who has deigned that we be the stewards over his creation. Also, in exercising our stewardship and dominance, we find a small imitation of God who made us in his image and likeness. He is the Creator and yet he allows us to share in that power by things such as growing plants that bear fruit. It is a small participation, to be sure, but it does help us to better know ourselves and our Creator.

Perhaps we are to a point in history that John Adams did not include in his thoughts. We have reached the point where man can study all of those things if he desires, or at least, some men are so privileged. Therefore, as some men have the luxury to determine what it is they will spend their lives pursuing, it seems that some may need to choose those "less fine" arts so that those arts will not be lost and so that mankind will continue to benefit from their existence. While it is a luxury to study painting, we cannot all study painting, for how will we eat? Likewise, the world still needs philosophy and natural history, even if it benefits from poetry. Therefore, it only means that we must work for a balance in a world where we have such privilege, to maintain ever reaching for great heights while simultaneously holding fast to those foundations upon which our current culture stands.

Perhaps most of us, we must keep asking ourselves the same question, revisiting it time and again throughout our lives... are we really living?

Sacred Heart of Jesus

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, in a vision of Christ revealing his Sacred Heart

The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a special time for all people to recall the nature of the love of God, a love that is so real and so potent that it is the essence of God himself. It is a love that is often referred to as the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. It is also revealed to us by God himself taking flesh and coming to us as a tiny child in the Incarnation. The love of God has been revealed to us as something that changes substances; something that makes old things new and dark things light. It is a love that purifies, a love that challenges, a love that leads. It is a love that demands sacrifice, even as it gives unconditionally. 

As St. John teaches us so beautifully:

"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.

This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.

God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us."

(1 John 4:7-19, NAB)

Sometimes we need to sit back and remember that the holiness we are called to by our baptism - that call to live for the Lord that can sometimes be so challenging - has at its core a gaze. A gaze of love. A gaze of love for a Heart that has gazed at us since the moment of our conception. A Heart that has always gazed upon us with love, even in the times we have been furthest from returning that love. As that Heart loves us, it draws us. "I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like those who raise an infant to their cheeks; I bent down to feed them" (Hos 11:4). We need only to look back, to return the gaze. To be within that love that he is generously giving.

To love is an act of the will, and also engenders many acts of service... yet, initially, it is a reception. Allow him to gaze upon your heart... allow him to love you, and look him back in the eyes. Recognize that Heart as the source of your life, the source of hope and the source of joy. 

What is Truly Priceless

Diving right into my thought for the moment, let's talk about human life. 

This morning I saw a tweet from Planned Parenthood praising Obamacare and the ACA for making women's "healthcare" accessible to all. Not only that, but they were emphasizing the "free" aspect. They referred to it as "priceless," which is only somewhat true. 
Yet, it wasn't the issue of healthcare that stirred something in me, but the question of what was being considered "priceless." 
The tweet read, "Birth control: $0. Cancer screenings: $0. Well-woman exams: $0. Affordable access to care: priceless."

You see, when I think about the main services offered by Planned Parenthood (abortion), the thing that comes to mind (before cancer screening) is human life. Particularly, children. Even more specifically, innocent, defenseless babies. 
It just seems more than a little contradictory to be praising the care of women as a priceless gift but at the same time to be benefiting financially from the death of children (which includes women). 

I have never been in a crisis pregnancy situation. I made a choice to not be sexually active until I was a married adult. Therefore, my experience of pregnancy, while full of the natural hardships, was not one surrounded by fear or doubt. However, having witnessed first hand my daughter rapidly growing inside of me and rapidly growing after she was born, I can quickly attest that there is nothing more important to me than her well-being. I can say with 90% accuracy that I would have had a very hard time deciding to give her up for adoption if I had been in a situation where I could not give her the care that she deserves... but I can say with 100% accuracy that if I truly could not care for her - if I couldn't feed, clothe and educate her - than I would absolutely find someone else who could before I could ever kill her. 

What is priceless is life. Children have their share of burden, of course. No child is easy to care for. Yet, nothing about this life is truly "easy." Whether we have it "made in the shade" or not, we all know that suffering is real. Everyone carries with them some form of heartache. Yet, when we embrace those challenges and work through them, we find ourselves SO MUCH stronger than before. Raising my daughter has completely changed me. I would have said that I was a strong woman before I had her, but I had no idea how much love was really inside of me. Daily, I feed her before I feed myself. I dress her before I dress myself. She gets a bath, I might get a shower. But that is exactly what I want for her. I see her life stretching out in front of her and I want her to live it! It will have its share of sadness and hardship, but it will also be full of beauty and love. That is what every single child deserves, no matter what the circumstances are of his or her conception or the circumstances of his or her parents. 

So basically, choose life. Choose adoption if that is what is the most loving choice. But do not let the voice of Planned Parenthood tell you that what they offer is priceless... the priceless gift is the little one living inside of you! Caring for that tiny person is the most priceless gift you can give in return.

Go With Him the Extra Mile

"Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles." (Matt. 5:41)

Sometimes I wonder if Jesus thought about Simon helping him to carry his Cross at the moment when he said that statement during his Sermon on the Mount.

What is brewing in my heart is the figurative "carrying of the cross." This is directly linked with some meditation on the Scripture concerning Our Lady: "And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart" (Lk 2:19). Mary, from the early moments of the conception of Christ by the Holy Spirit, finds herself the keeper of something special.

I wish there were words to express how I understand this. Analogously, she was given a garden to tend, a special, secret place, set aside from the eyes of the world. She was the guardian and protector of that little piece of land, and her charge was to keep it safe and to bring forth fruit. She tilled the soil and watered the ground as best she could, until she began to see the fruit of her labor springing up. And then when that fruit was ripened, she gave it away, that it might bring the nourishment to others that it was intended to give. She let go of something that she had spent years working on, caring for, guarding and tending, so that it could go and die. And in death, the seeds which were within it spread themselves far and wide, so that there was a rich harvest of new life brought forth from its death. And in that way, she saw the fulfillment of her work taking even greater measures than she could have hoped for when she first started to work. All of this, she kept in her heart. All of this work, growth and death, she witnessed with the eye of her mind and understood in the wisdom of her heart.

In the practical, Mary did experience what all pregnant women experience, which is a unique understanding of allowing life to grow within you, a life that is intrinsically linked to your own, and inherently dependent on you, and yet... is absolutely separate. There is a mind and heart, a body, organs, blood running through veins that are not yours; yet, they can only be there because of your mind, heart, organs, blood and body. It is a strange balance of a deep bond that is still separated by two bodies. Even while Our Lady had the Son of God growing and developing in her womb, she knew how completely "his own" he was. Even while she scarified her public status, her physical comfort, her appetite, her previous freedoms, all for the sake of the little being inside of her, she also knew and understood that this being was not hers.

This understanding of the unity between the mother and the child, but also the true and real distinction, followed and continued to grow in her heart as her child was born and matured. The Son, who at one time could not live without her physical presence, would grow to be a man who was completely independent of her. It is the human condition. Yet, she kept these things and reflected on them in her heart. I think it is safe to say that even when Jesus was far from her, traveling, preaching, teaching, living an independent life, she still knew something of that interior sense of union that she knew while he was inside her womb. I think this is what it means to "keep someone in your heart." Presumably, the most unique or profound experience of this "keeping someone in your heart" is possible for a mother and child. But even for those who simply love someone else, this is possible.

It is the profound "holding someone in your heart," even if they do not know of your love, or do not want your love, or simply cannot appreciate your love, that is what I think of concerning "going the extra mile" with someone. Many people, really all people, suffer. Many, or all, of the people we know and are acquainted with will carry heavy burdens at one point or another. Perhaps we will be able to help them. Perhaps the circumstances will allow us to make them meals, send cards, spend time with them to help them cope, give them a hug, etc... Perhaps the circumstances will be that we are hundreds of miles away, and we really cannot be a physical presence to them in their time of sorrow. What then?

This is where we can still go another mile with them, even if it is only in our hearts. We can carry them within. We can lift and shoulder the burden with them by remembering them in our prayers. We can make sacrifices and offer penances for their sake. We can turn daily to the Lord with our petition, and present them to him for healing, consolation, mercy and love. We can say, in essence, "Lord, as long as I live, and as long as I breathe, let each breath be part of my prayer to you for that person, for his or her sake." We can bear them in our mind and heart as we go through our daily work. In each circumstance, whether it is a joyful one or a sorrowful one, we can thank God and petition him on their behalf.

Is this not what a mother has to do for her child? Is that not what it really means to live for someone else? To go another mile with anyone, be it a spouse, a sibling, a parent, a child, a friend, or even a stranger, is to accept that the first thing we can do is to welcome that person into our hearts. Perhaps there are many other very real and physical things that we can do for that person. Perhaps there is nothing material or physical that we can do for that person. Either way, the first thing we must do is to take them into our hearts. There we can tend a little garden of empathy, of understanding, of patience, of mercy, of forgiveness, of prayer, of solidarity in suffering. There we can be a balm for the wound they bear, even if unknown to them.

We have to have faith, a faith that can bear fruit, so that what we bring into our hearts we offer to God for his cultivation. We have to imitate our Blessed Mother in bearing with her Son from the moment that his tiny body was growing within her until his body was pierced for us all on the Cross. Even there, her faith allowed her to hold the darkest of sufferings in her heart and to return it to God. And the seed that died bore such an abundant harvest! We have to believe that God can and will do good things with the prayers and petitions we offer, even if we never know about the fruit that comes from it.

Let us not be afraid, let us not even hesitate, to hold others in our hearts, and to go with them each mile that they need.

A Culture with Double Standards

So, I'm not sure how many of you have been paying attention to pop culture lately, but Miley Cyrus has "wowed" everyone with her display's at the VMAs and also in her new music video.

However, sadly, most people probably just flipped the channel or had a good chuckle at how ridiculous it all was, before moving on to more interesting things.

This, my friends, is a problem. A serious one, too. There's a fine line between being "desensitized" to things that we see or hear consistently in a culture full of music, video, dialogue and ongoing movement, and being "desensitized" to the point that we don't apply any common sense.

The downward spiral of women being excessively sexualized to sell their music, videos, movies, etc...may seem like nothing new. It's been years in the making, right? Ever since women have been "liberalized," they have felt that great freedom to express themselves in ever creative, and revealing, ways. Right?

It seems to me that this is a false notion. It seems that if we apply some common sense, we might notice something. A young woman who has a talent for music, dance or acting, but who does not have any interest in being sold as a public prostitute through the media, may not make it very far. That is a reality. That does not seem like freedom or liberty. That seems like a very specific pigeonhole that one either has to accept or reject. Those who accept, like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Miley, Katy Perry, Selena Gomez and the many others, are all doing the same thing. They are being sold by their bodies. They are selling products on sexual appeal, on sexual expression, on sex. They are not selling products because of their quality, talent, creativity and ingenuity. (And need I mention, for those things to sell, there has to be a market. There are consumers who create this demand and keep it going.)

There are some women artists who are able to maintain a somewhat decent amount of fame and success and also maintain their own decency in terms of their bodies... but the reality is that they are still not ever going to enter the "upper crust" of the market unless they decide to forsake some of their decency for racy and risque expression. This is what I see as such a problem.

There will always be artists who desire to be shocking and revealing and who feel that their value and worth really is only in their sexual appeal and sexual expression. That is a very sad situation, but I don't think it is likely to change. However, there is a wide gap between those who truly desire that sort of expression and those who feel they have no other choice if they wish to be competitive and successful. (I'm setting aside the question of "if you know that's the market, why get into it in the first place?" Let's assume these artists are in it to win it, and look at the bigger picture.)

The larger picture is that the same culture that decries sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, rape, incest and other such horrible crimes (and for very good reason), the same culture that defends young women in foreign cultures from sexual abuse and from forced child marriages or other instances where a woman is likely to be abused, that same culture demands that the entertainment world provide women in soft porn situations in every level of artistry, music, movie, video, etc...

HELLO. Again, we through common sense out the window when we decided we were desensitized. The effect of consistent and similar experience that causes us to have our senses dulled to what we are experiencing should not translate to our purposeful ignorance and relativistic tolerance of something that is inappropriate!

What on earth can we expect a young girl of middle school age to think at this point? She has been told that all of those abuses I already mentioned are terrible things. Yet, she sees women constantly being marketed as only sexual objects. The ads from underwear to potato chips include women barely covered, and often the actions and body language of the models and actresses is more suggestive than the clothes they aren't wearing. What does that translate to in the mind of a thirteen year old girl? "If I want to be beautiful, if I want to be desired, I have to be like that. Because she is so desirable. So therefore, that is what will make me desirable." Is there anything being taught to this child about how to protect herself from abuse? How to value herself as a person? How to realize her worth both in the beauty of her body and in the many talents she has, and her intelligence? Is she really to understand her self worth as only the physical body when it is being seen and lusted after?

That is precisely what our culture had decided. Despite the many who cry out against the abuse of women that still continues today, there are just as many who cry for the "freely accepted" abuse of women through contemporary media and entertainment. This is a double standard that cannot continue.

A woman is beautiful. A woman should understand her beauty in her body, certainly. That is a very important part of what it is to be womanly. Yet, that is only a part. Every woman is still a person. Every person has a mind, soul and body. Every person is comprised of both the spiritual and the physical. We are never just a body, just as we are never just a mind. The person must be understood for the whole. A woman who is only valued for how she looks scantily clad or undressed, is not being valued appropriately, and is suffering a form of abuse that everyone just accepts because it has become "commonplace." It should not be. It cannot remain so. Our culture has a responsibility to every woman, and especially every little girl, to wake up and realize exactly how far down this road we have gone. It is much, much too far.