After a recent office move, I was given a cardboard cut-out of our Deaconess who used to share an office with me. This 18 inch cut-out had a photo for a face with a long shirt and a suit jacket for clothes, both in the deaconess uniform navy blue. When the first grade class passed by my office and spotted the cut-out, they immediately asked me one question. “Where are her pants?” I tried to explain that the shirt she was wearing covered everything except the tiny cardboard feet that stuck out on each side, but these kids just weren’t buying it. They demanded that Deaconess Karen’s cut-out receive proper clothing and so with the help of our first grade teacher, they created the most colorful and elaborate pants any cardboard cut-out has ever been graced to wear. 

“Where are her pants?” is actually a question I had been considering for several weeks. You have probably heard of the newest pop singing sensation Lady Gaga. Her fashion is touted as cutting edge and many are treating both her fashion and her music as the next big thing. It seems that every single time I see a picture of her, however, she isn’t wearing any pants. No, she isn’t sporting very short skirts or shorts. She is very literally going completely without pants. The first dozen or so times I saw pictures of her I expected to see the caption or article address her obvious lack of clothing, but other than a few references, no one seems shocked enough to comment on it.

As if this is the next big fashion trend, I have spotted many other pictures of celebrities who have decided to forgo pants altogether. Most recently, Taylor Momsen, of Gossip Girl fame, performed with her band wearing a man’s white shirt over lingerie and, you guessed it, no pants. Taylor Momsen is 16.

At first I felt like I was in an odd version of The Emperor’s New Pants where I was the only one who noticed the pants weren’t there. I considered the possible reasons why the media would not be asking the simple question of where are these women’s pants. It occurred to me that rather than being shocked by the lack of clothing it seems to be a normal progression from other fashion we have seen recently. It happened so slowly that by the time Lady Gaga came along in her barely there leotard, no one seemed to think twice about her lack of clothing.

This is one of the greatest, most obvious examples I have come across in a long time of how sin gradually sneaks up on you. It comes not all at once but little by little, slowly whittling away at what God says is right. One pornographic website becomes two, then three, until your browser is filled. One lie becomes a whole host of lies until the truth is buried so deep you can’t even find it anymore. It makes the skirts and shorts shorter and shorter until they are completely gone and you barely notice the difference.

Maybe its happening in your life, maybe it’s happening in the life of your youth, maybe both. What would happen if we would all wake up and take this lesson to heart? Sin needs to be addressed early on before it starts to creep up and take a hold. Sometimes we are afraid to address those little sins early on because they don’t seem like much at the time. It was just a small issue with your youth, not really worth addressing and possibly pushing them away. However, when we don’t speak that law when it is needed the results can be catastrophic.

If we allow sin to lull us or our youth into a place where we don’t even notice it anymore, we are in trouble. Maybe we can take the chance to confess and absolve early, rather than waiting for us to lose our pants entirely.