Something Beautiful

Sinead O'Connor facts:
 - perpetually bald singer and presently nearly 45 years old
 - Irish singer songwriter
 - started her musical career with Ton Ton Macoute (a band named for a notorious police force)
 - ordained as a priest in the 1990s by Bishop Michael Cox in the Irish Orthodox Catholic Church
 - mother of four, married three times
 - diagnosed with bi-polar disorder
 - source of controversy at times including statements about the Pope, her own sexuality, and in    
    appearances on SNL
 - produced and recorded more than ten CDs
 - self professed believer in Jesus and pantheism

I will confess that I haven't always listened to Sinead. Sure, I have been aware of her. I have observed her in the news now and then, and I do remember the "stunt" she pulled on SNL, tearing the picture of the Pope in half and uttering her line "Fight the real enemy."

At a minimum, individuals such as Sinead seem to have a polarizing effect for a lot of people. Some won't like her for the things she has said. Other's will outright reject her for actions she has taken. And so it goes - we pick and chose the people whom we allow to influence us and our world on the basis of what they have said and done. And, over time, we develop a grid or system whereby we can make quick (snap?) judgments about the good, the bad and the ugly (according to us) in this world.

And, let's be clear: for the most part, this often works quite well when efficiency and predictability are the metrics which matter most. In fact, there is something wise and good about being discerning regarding who we allow to influence our hearts, minds, thinking etc. and in a world where life comes at us at breakneck speed we often feel the internal need to get a system like this up and running asap.

And then, you end up with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkeVqwba7Zk&hd=1

Beautiful.                  Beautiful.                  Beautiful.

What's the point of this blog entry? It's simple - and in a lot of ways a remedial message that we all should have picked up a long time ago (it's just that this clip from Sinead reminded me of it a lot.)

Here's the point: so often we want as Christians to put demarcation lines around what is good, what is bad, what we should do, shouldn't do, who we should hang with and who we can safely ignore. There are SO many forces in the Christian circles that want us to make things blacker and whiter. And the temptation is to do this all over our lives, carving up people, culture and relationships on a subjective scale of what we deem good and right vs. bad and problematic. Sure we will invoke biblical verse and ideas to justify our lines - and maybe this is good and right for certain seasons and times.

But, what if we thought of this differently? More to the point, what if we simply engaged our minds and hearts a bit more and rather than leveraging popular Christian biases? What if we actually learn the discipline of thoughtful discernment about this world? And, what if rather than instilling fear  about this that or the other thing be it from the pulpit or in our homes as we raise our kids, we insisted that pastors and parents teach their kids and this world to engage, listen, discern, think - and all of it in a dance with the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ (in whom ALL things hold together - Col 1:17)

This world of ours has problems, to be sure. But, it is God's world. His. No one else's. And rather than cowering from what we perceive to be problem parts of our world, or, worse yet, tsk/tsking the world because it doesn't look the way we think it should (this simply seems to simplistic to me - OF COURSE IT'S NOT WHAT IT SHOULD BE - if it were Jesus Christ wouldn't have to have died, rose and announced a Kingdom of newness and beauty and redeeming powers that cannot be thwarted) - the clarion call of Christ followers seems to be to enter, engage, seek the welfare of this world - and learn to discern the movements of God and His Spirit in a world that is under a Divinely-authored renovation.

Some will say that they can disregard Sinead because of her life, her words, her stance on this or that, or even her self professed confused sexuality. But, what if we simply said, "Thanks." Thanks Sinead for a beautiful song that I can savour gently. And, "Thanks, God," for revealing the redeeming beauty of your power and grace by using a person like Sinead. Using her, with all of her foibles and folly gives me hope that even tho my "junk" isn't on TV or in the news, God still uses me.

Anything less than a measure of humble adoration for God's use of marred clay seems to belie an dangerous pride that might make one the target of God's destructive power. (Proverbs 15: 25) So, with humility, I say thanks Sinead for a beautiful song that points me to the beauty of our Heavenly Father - even if we are both a bit confused at times about who He is and how deep His love is for you and me.