The past couple weeks have been tough in the entertainment world, losing 4 big names at once. Doesn't it usually happen in 3's? Anyway, with the loss of Kung Fu Master David Carradine, Jester Ed McMann, Angel Farrah Fawcett, and now the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, there is a lot of buzz out there. Every person's reactions are based on their opinion of the person who died, and the opinions are many! Of course the free thought is what makes this Country great, but I can't help but be saddened by some of them.
My personal opinion about MJ is that he was psychologically ill, but a genius in music. The world worshipped him, which is not OK with me, but his talent and impact on the music industry is something that cannot be denied. I loved his music. I remember listening to Thriller and Beat It on the playground on a friend's little cassette player and loving it. I still love it and have a lot of his #1's on my Crackberry. As far as the pedophile accusations, I lean towards not believing he was the monster he is accused of being. The accusers walked away with money instead of justice, that tells me that something was false. In my opinion, his childhood was destroyed by fame and the greed of his father, like SO many child actors and performers of that era. His family says that he was just child-like, loved children, and was trying to re-gain the childhood he never had. That coming from an adult man with psychological issues is often considered creepy. We will never know what truly happened, and now it's between him and God. It really only ever was.
Which leads to my sadness. I was at a Christian function when all of this with MJ was going down, and actually had someone say to me, referring to all the recent deaths, that "the gates of hell were busy this week". They were laughing, and I was in shock because it was coming out of the mouth of someone I have deep respect for and have known forever. How can it be funny? How can we know or judge where they are right now? I believe in hell. I believe we can choose to not live in relationship with God and that it has consequences in Eternity. I cannot however, know the heart of someone else at the moment of their death and say in jest or otherwise that they went to hell! We look at the celebrities today and the absolute mess that is plastered all over the media and assume there is no hope for them, that they are out of God's reach. (Which is a lie!) And then somehow we are not saddened or moved at the thought of someone spending an Eternity without the Presence of God. As a follower I have experienced times in my life where I have not felt His Presence because of the hardening of my heart; because of the path I had chosen. We all experience dry times and it is not pleasant. That is only a taste of what a world completely void of Him would be like. A world with no God filter? We cannot imagine this. The very thought makes me shudder! And yet we are ready to toss anyone who is not like us into such a place without batting an eye. I am thankful that He is the final Judge and knows the heart of each individual in life at the point of death. I am thankful that my Eternity does not rest in fickle human hands but in the Omniscient Creator.
I am guilty of joking about "going to hell" for things done by people. It's usually with a friend and I don't really believe they are going to hell. It's a lot less funny after the person has actually died, however. It's easy to think, oh they got what they deserved, but if that were true... if we all got what we deserved, we would all be screwed.
I am not in denial. From the outside it doesn't look like these people had any connection to God at all. But the bottom line is that I hope that God will give us a heart that sees people from His perspective, and gives the capacity to grieve when one of His children is lost. I do not want to be callous to the fate of immortal souls that are created in God's image. That judgemental superiority is one of the most effective barriers between followers and unbelievers. And by the grace of God, I refuse to add any bricks.
