Little Girl Lost

Okay.....so I promised a blog about baptisms - and I promise it's coming. But, I've got to get the time to load up a few pics too. And, I'm running around like a crazy person at the moment. I've had a team of 7 Chileans staying at my house and this is the first morning I've had my quiet, uninterrupted morning. I LOVE IT!

Anyhow, I saw FB blown-up about the whole Miley Cyrus debacle, and I thought I'd throw my two cents in. Excited, aren't ya?

After my FB page was blown- up about Miley Cyrus posts, I decided to YouTube the video to see what in the world had everyone in such an uproar. My first thought was: That is totally bizarre. What's with the tongue? And the dancing teddy bears? And the foam finger? What is she on?

The questions that followed were something like this:

Who told her that's pretty? Or sexy?
How long will it take her to regret this, to want to take that moment back?
What are her parents feeling tonight?
When Miley is alone tonight, after all the hoopla has died, will she feel successful? Or ashamed? Embarrassed? 
What will Miley feel in ten years about tonight?

Now, when you and I do something stupid, say something stupid - there are maybe a hand full of people around to witness it. Miley's stupid is on display for the entire world to see. It's been videoed and talked, Facebooked about and blogged about. No one will ever forget because it's out there in cyber land FOREVER.

For that, I am truly sorry, sweet girl.

Yes. Sweet Girl. Her performance was totally bizarre (teddy bears from hell, anyone?) and totally inappropriate. It was shocking - even sickening. But it left me wondering what our society did to Miley. We praised her and lifted her up. We made t-shirts, dolls, backpacks and everything else bearing her likeness. Now that she's all grown-up, society says you need to leave that Hannah Montana thing in the dust. And she did.

She's so lost. She's trying - grasping at anything to redefine herself as an adult to keep that fame. All I keep thinking about is one day she's gonna have a daughter and she probably won't feel the same way about that performance when she has to explain why mommy was grabbing herself and throwing herself allover a married man.

Then I got sort of frustrated. I hear, from a lot of people, about how badly women are viewed in Africa. They are someone's property. Women are treated like slaves. Husbands don't value their wives - etc, etc.

Here's the thing: are women in America all that different? What do we have to show for our "freedom?" Lady Gaga, Lindsey Lohan, Amanda Bynes.....Miley Cyrus. Society is continually telling us you have to be thinner, prettier, blonder to get a man. Wear less clothes and more makeup. Stores are fully of the raciest lingerie that our minds can think up. Magazine articles abound about "how to please your man." Every t.v. show and movie is about someone goddess like woman who lives with her boyfriend or sleeps with him before she is married. Those relationships are build on sexual attraction and "being good in bed" instead of what marriage is really all about. I'm not trying to suggest that sex isn't an important part of marriage. I'm trying to say that our society is teaching us that sex is the only part of a relationship - and that's not reality.

So, our enslavement to sexuality.....is it really all that more liberating? Women are still looked at as objects. We talk of open marriages and divorce like it's no big deal. There is no commitment to marriage. If it doesn't work - move on and try again.

So, really. In our attempt to be free we have enslaved ourselves in a very different, maybe more harmful way. Yes, I want men to view their women differently here in Mozambique. I spend a lot of time teaching about that. BUT, I want my culture to view women differently. I want my society to value who Christ made to be as a woman - not the size of my body, the color of my hair, or how sexual I am. I want a society that teaches a little girl that her sexuality is a beautiful thing, but it's only on display for her husband - that the men who want sex before they make a lifetime marriage commitment to her are not worth her time. That's what I want from my society.

Please, if anything, pray for Miley. Don't chew her up and spit her out because she's the product of everything society says she should be. She's still a little girl with a heart and soul and she still has to lay her head on her pillow at night and think......and think. And all that thinking is probably not making her feel very happy. She's grasping at this illusive idea of happiness and she's not gonna find it our there in the world. Weep for her. Weep for a little girl who have us Hannah Montana and then felt like she had to give us - that - to keep our attention.

Fame. I am sure it's costing her more that she wanted to pay.

So Little Girl Lost, I am sorry for what society has done to you. For the choices you have made. I am sorry. Just know there is a way home.