This morning's church service was pretty powerful. Rick Dunn talked a lot about the "economics of contentment," and about how our consumer-driven culture has wreaked havoc not only on our bank accounts and markets, but on each other, on our relationships, on how we perceive others and objectify people. What was the most eye-opening, however, was a song he played at the end, which had me crying all the way to work. It convicted me so much about the way our society- including me!- treats girls and sexualizes them and then leaves them on the curb to deal with the emotional turmoil that comes about. Just because girls are treated this way, though, doesn't excuse them from doing it to each other. We are each other's own worst critics. Seriously. It's so easy to sit down with the gossip magazines and gawk over how much weight X-celebrity has gained, or how terrible she looks without makeup on... and yet- we don't want to be viewed with that same degree of nit-picky criticism. Yes, it's sexist. Yes, it's disgusting. Yes, it has damaged so, so many girls in our world. But we do it too.
Anyway, it's a song by Bebo Norman called "Britney":
I love what he says about writing the song, too:
“Britney” is a song about what our culture says and does to young women these days. It’s a collective apology for the struggle girls face growing up too fast in today’s overly adult-oriented world. The song confesses, “I’m sorry for the lies we told… We took you into our arms then left you cold/I’m sorry for this cruel, cruel world… /We sell the beauty but destroy the girl.” It’s about the lies we tell them about fame and money and what’s beautiful and what will give them life. It’s an apology for those lies. But more than that, it’s an invitation to the truth about a God who is bigger than the pain this world so often leaves them in.
I was up late, couldn’t sleep, watching some news channel, when yet another story about Britney Spears came on. My first instinct was to scoff and write it off, but then there was this freeze-frame shot of a look on her face of utter and absolute despair and confusion and brokenness—a look that I recognized. And I remember thinking “This girl is a child of God.” Suddenly, I saw her story not as something to mock, but as a real-life tragedy that is desperate for redemption and hope—a story not so different from any of our stories. Take away all the lights and cameras, and it’s really just a narrative of a girl so clearly in need of love, so clearly in need of the redeeming love of our God.
And suddenly, all I wanted to do was just apologize, over and over. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...on behalf of this fallen world, on behalf of our consumerism that so consistently devours what it wants and leaves the remnants in the wake of the search for the next fix, on behalf of believers, like myself, who mock and hurl stones rather than scribbling a message in the sand.
I think that night I saw her through the eyes of Jesus for the first time. I imagined what Jesus would say to me in my darkest hour and realized that those are the words we should speak to this world, to this culture, and even to Britney Spears in their darkest hour. “I’m sorry. Hope is here.”
Just really wanted to share this. It's something we all need to hear. We've got to stop looking at each other through the world's eyes. We're not here to throw stones and make judgments. Luckily for all of us, God is our judge, not our neighbors, coworkers, friends, or even family. If that weren't the truth, if it weren't for grace, we'd all be partying with Satan for eternity. I wish I could learn to see people more like Jesus does. I hate that I'm so weighted down by my own insecurities that I condemn others before they condemn me. But why do we have to be so quick to condemn each other? Do we really think we have that much authority and control?
Sometimes, humanity makes me sad. I guess at the end of the day, we're really all a bunch of Britneys.
