the left piece of tape
I remember the two women standing there, both holding an eight-inch strip of tape in the air for the group to observe. Just moments before, the woman on the left had taken her piece of tape and stuck it to each person’s arm around the room. Now, they stood side by side, comparing the strips. The piece on the right was clean. The piece on the left was dirty.
“This is what we do for the kids.” They said, “Abstinence and promiscuity.” They went on to explain that this exercise was to show kids what’s happening to their bodies when they have premarital sex. “The piece of tape on the left “got around,” if you know what we mean…Stay clean, save yourself for your spouse! Be like the right piece of tape! Hardy har…”
Sigh…
As I drove home that evening, I thought about how short this “exercise” fell in communicating the beauty of God’s design and how terribly it communicated the dignity of the human body. The presenting group was there to share with other ministries their method for teaching Abstinence-Only Sex Education. This was their “opener”—the visual to really “show” the kids.
Um no.
If I am being fair, I didn’t doubt their intentions. Of course, I support Abstinence-only sex education, but their approach fell terribly short of communicating any beauty, goodness, or truth. My heart broke as I thought more about the dirty piece of tape. How many kids left their presentations already feeling like spoiled goods?
The left piece of tape fails to tell the story of beginning again…of sacrificial, enduring, unconditional love… Of faith, hope, mercy… of the broken finding wholeness….
Somewhere along the way, the heresy that we could lose our dignity by being dirty or unwanted, promiscuous, humiliated, abused, addicted, homeless, lost, or rejected….found its grubby little way into our hearts.
That piece of tape can never be redeemed… What a terrible presentation.
I invite you to consider the reality that God stepped into humanity and took on the weakness of human flesh. His tiny body, brought forth from the womb of Mary, was welcomed by the stench of animals. During His lifetime, He wept and hungered, He fatigued, stumbled, and fell. He was beaten, tortured, and humiliated… His flesh was pierced, bruised, and spat upon. Modesty denied, He hung from a Cross, naked. Bleeding and gasping for air, He died with onlookers casting lots for His garments and wondering what to have for supper…
Yet, on this Solemnity of the Ascension, we must ask a very important question: Why did God see it fit to have Christ—His body, scarred with the wounds of this life—ascend fully into the glory of heaven?
Because of the left piece of tape.
My friends, “the dignity of the human person” and the “sanctity of human life” are superficial, fluff phrases apart from the Gospel—apart from the Incarnation and the Ascension. God knows we will sustain injury through sin, our own sin, and the sins of others. In today’s culture, we have an epidemic of bodily injury - addiction, gender mutilation, abortion, rape, euthanasia, assault, and the list goes on and on. As we meditate on the stunning beauty of Christ’s Ascension, we encounter the lesson that the left piece of tape missed - that our body is sacred, that our scars cannot negate our dignity, and that redemption is a gift for each and every one of us if we choose to receive it regardless what the left piece of tape looks like.
My friends, at The Pelican Project, we joyfully reawaken a culture of life in and through the Gospel. It is the only way to communicate our true dignity and the sanctity of life. This week, talk with your children about the Ascension - it matters.
