our wicked redemption

Somewhere in the cloud of information that has traipsed through my brain this week, I saw that my favorite Sarah Palin and her daughter were once again guests on Oprah Winfrey. Okay, you know, I don’t really need to keep complaining about this woman and why pretty much everything she says makes my skin crawl. Except… this time… it was her daughter.

Well, I’m not going to recap what can be easily viewed in a minute.

I won’t spend several paragraphs arguing against the determination for abstinence. I realize there are some people very devout in that faith. And you know what, when I was Bristol’s age, I was one of them. But… I grew up. I left my little town and my religion. I met a guy who made the present opportunity for rapture a lot more believable than the possibility of an imaginary hereafter. And, well… I kind of got turned off by marriage. But not sex.

Again. My beliefs. I respect the fact that someone has other beliefs. I don’t condemn them as evil or on the straight and narrow path to damnation because they don’t think what I think. I do think, though, there are consequences - and not happy ones - to choosing abstinence.

It ends the conversation, which ends the education. Education of birth control and disease control. Very valuable conversations for the present life. About the consequences of the here and now. Not the result in a supposed eternity.

And yet… so many in our society determine this an important value to impart on our young women. To save their souls by saving their bodies. That being a virgin makes them a better human being.

Maybe. But what about… being a better human being by… being kind? If we want to teach young women to fear the wrath of God or karma or the evil harbingers of doom by being wicked, why doesn’t that instruction lend itself to the value of common human decency?

Perhaps my daily conversations rest on the subject of bullying more than most, but this week I don’t think it was easy to escape the story of what happened in South Hadley. A 15 year old girl killed herself because her peers bullied her. The nature of the taunts is still undetermined. But… geez, anyone who has been to high school can probably imagine the cattiness of a group of girls. They are mean. Vicious. Inhumanely unkind.

But why? I can understand them. I was a teenage girl once. I certainly had my moments of cruelty. Not going to deny that. But I was on the receiving end of teases as a child, so I can’t go very long with dispensing them. And yet… I know that name calling hardened my soul a bit. I know my frustration with myself has sharpened my tongue on many an occasion. So I understand where these girls are coming from. I don’t forgive it. I don’t… understand why we have a society where we tolerate it.

But… don’t we create it? We have reality show after reality show where ‘judges’ criticize others for trying to showcase their talents. We have tabloids that pick apart every article of clothing, every morsel of food, every miniscule movement of our favorite celebrities. We gossip. We challenge our leaders. We are unhappy with ourselves. And we teach our children to be unhappy with themselves. So they take it out on other children.

So, to connect the two dots of my present observations… They are separate issues, sure. But, if we are on a quest to make our young women better souls that are worthy of heaven, why do we condemn a natural act of life as sin? Why do we not seek to better their souls by encouraging them to respect and love their fellow man? To abstain from cruelty that can destroy a life. Promise to practice kindness. To make them better human individuals with love, not shame or insecurity.