A cause for 'Celebrations'?

The first thing I do when I get home from work is take off my shoes. I love being barefoot. I do slip on a pair of fuzzy slippers in the winter, but if the weather is warm, and I'm not required to wear shoes, my toes are out there wiggling for anyone to see.

Over the years, I've learned to protect my toes as a matter of self-preservation. Anyone who has experienced the sudden, white-hot pain of a stubbed toe has learned the same thing. It always seemed so unfair to me that just as winter released its grip, just as the toes entered into full-fledged rejoicing at their restored freedom, in a moment of careless play, the big toe hits the ground ahead of the rest of the foot and shouts of jubilation are replaced by yelps of pain.

I shudder at the multiple memories. Certainly the memory inspired the bicycle rule for our children, "Do not ride barefoot or in sandals. You must be wearing shoes and socks to ride. No exceptions."

Perhaps it is the special dispensation that defines childhood, but it seems as though that white-hot pain, coming so suddenly, quickly faded and the day's play resumed once the Band Aid was securely in place. Perhaps the siren song of childhood simply wooed us from our tears. Either that or in the stubbing we lost the nerve endings along with the flesh and so our tolerance for pain increased with every stub.

Building up a tolerance for pain can be a good thing. Especially for klutzes like me. But someone who builds up a tolerance for drugs or alcohol may be setting themselves up for hard row to hoe.

The human spirit is resilient. And we are stronger than we think. Prisoners of war, once released, realize at the end of their captivity that they had survived what would have been unthinkable to them prior to their capture. They adapted. They persevered. They overcame by simply surviving one day at a time. They learned to tolerate the intolerable: loneliness, pain, hunger, thirst, all deprivations on a scale completely foreign to those of us who have enjoyed the indulgent lifestyle of modern America every day of our lives.

Repeated exposure is a key ingredient for developing tolerance. It's true with chili peppers. It's true with social development. Repeated exposure desensitizes the heart. It happens to cops, it happens to doctors, it happens to everyone.

Desensitization works. Small wonder it is the preferred weapon in the impressive arsenal of the LGBT. Evidence is found every evening during prime time programming, in movies, plays, books, and, as was just announced Tuesday, soon in the Celebrations section of the Omaha World Herald.

The Omaha World Herald has amended its wedding announcement policy to now include "same-sex wedding announcements ... if the weddings are legal unions." Although the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest civil rights organization working to achieve LGBT equality, noted in a press release announcing the newspaper's decision, that they are pleased by the change in policy, it maintains that it still "doesn't go far enough."

(On a side note, the OWH changed its policy after the father of one of the women involved launched a "successful" Facebook campaign. Facebook and other social networking sites seem to be the latest avenue for societal change.)

The concept of desensitization is not limited to the gay/lesbian issue. The same tactic has been in place since no fault divorce came on the scene, with programs such as "One Day At A Time" educating the population on the struggles of single parenthood. Adultery has often been glamorized on the big screen and on the smaller one in homes as has co-habitation and premarital sex. From watching some of the programs geared to teens and tweens, one would think everyone's "doing it." One of the strongest arguments against pornography is that it desensitizes its audience, requiring images of ever-increasing darkness to evoke the same sensations as time goes by. And, some say, when the images aren't enough, that audience may try to recreate the evocative scenes in real life, with disastrous consequences.

Developing a high level of tolerance can be a very good thing. But, as is true of so many other aspects of human development, it can also be a very dangerous thing.

It brings the necessity of absolutes to the forefront once again. Because without them, nothing stands between us and utter destruction. And changing the names, the terms, even the rules, doesn't change the truth.

Do homosexuals deserve equal rights? Equal pay for equal work? Safe, affordable housing? Certainly, they do. No reasonable person can successfully argue against those points. They even have the right to choose how to express their sexuality. We all do. That right, however, does not necessarily make what we choose to do "right."

Should believers abandon millennia of tradition and religious teachings, even the spoken Word of God, by granting same sex couples the right to marry, by holding adulterers blameless, by winking at the sexual infidelities that make the nightly news almost nightly? Only if we are ready to abandon all other absolutes as well, along with our faith and our right to be called children of the Living God, as described in the third chapter of 1 John.

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5:20 (NIV)

I don't have all the answers, but I know the One who does. Let's walk together for awhile and discover Him; together.

Dawn