Despite all the national media attention & outraged Facebook posts over Miley Cyrus' outrageous performance at the VMA's, I somehow missed the clip that actually showed her performance. After putting the Darlings to bed, even the Lone Ranger mentioned the sickening display, & sheer curiosity drove me to google to video...as soon as the poor girl climbed out of a Teddy Bear (a teddy bear of all things!) sticking out her tongue & looking possessed, I knew the performance would be every bit as awful as everyone had made it out to be. A flood of emotions hit as I watched that video- I was disappointed in her & in those who knowingly let her put on such an act, sickened by the repulsive lack of respect for sexuality, & saddened for the hurting little girl she must be. Midway through the appalling production when I simply closed the browser...but my mind couldn't do the same. That bawdy scene was emblazoned on my mind, just as it was in the minds of countless men, women, & children who witnessed it...which brings up the importance of what we out into our minds, but that's another post altogether...
I was not in the least bit surprised that Miley behaved the way she did...and neither am I surprised that Lindsay Lohan has been arrested & in rehab countless times yet is now receiving a show from Oprah in large part thanks to her disturbing conduct...I'm not surprised because our culture is reaping what it sows. This does not occur just on the iconic media level, but in the small hometowns in which you & I were born & bred. We stick out-of-proportioned, scantily clad Barbie dolls in the hands of toddler girls & wonder why they grow up with skewed body image. Little ladies have their mothers dressing them in itsy-bitty-teeny-weeny-yellow-polka-dot-bikinis & when they reach the age of dressing themselves they choose clothing thats even more revealing. In the town in which I grew up, underage drinking was rampant, & both the community & the police turned their heads....enough so that we had teachers tell us to call them if we wound up drunk on prom night. Young men and women, little boys and girls, are desperate for recognition and attention and quickly figure out that they get more of both by doing wrong. Its an epidemic that goes beyond the screen of your television & straight into your living room. No, I'm not surprised about the behavior of Miley or Lindsay because quite honestly that could easily be any girl from my hometown, any girl from the class of 2004....that could be my Darlings one day...
So I am deeply saddened for Miley & Lindsay, & for the multitude of young girls who grow up in this relative world that has forfeited all sense of right and wrong...but I also know that it doesn't have to be that way. Despite how far the world's standards have fallen, Abba's (Jewish for the word 'Daddy', I use this to refer to God) is unwavering. He has a set standard of right & wrong, an unchanging list of do's & don't do's, and an expectation for His children to do their best to measure up...and that is the standard that my children will learn. There's no place like home, friends, and home is the only place in which our children will learn not to prostitute their integrity for the sake of attention and acceptance...it's the only place that they will develop a fighting chance to not become Miley, Lindsay, or the girl from the class of 2004...
Isaiah 5:20 'What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.'
Deuteronomy 6:6-9 'And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your heads and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates.'
