Permit me to share with you all a minivan meditation:
Today as I drove my daughter, Miranda, to school she asked me when the Grammys would be on TV. I told her that they were on last night.
"They were! I wanted to watch them! Do you know who won best album?"
"No, I did not watch them either. Did you have a preference?"
"Well, I was hoping that it was Lady Gaga or Adele." (which she pronounced Adeal)
"You have heard these albums?" Miranda has an iPod, but it is loaded with Matt Maher and Audrey Assad, plus a few others, along with some apps, which are what really occupy her iPod time.
"Sure, Kelsey has them, I heard them when she was home." Kelsey is her college aged sister-and I now note that I may want to recheck her iPod music.
"Did you know that Lady Gaga is Catholic?" she asked me.
I do not know a lot about Lady Gaga (I think she went to a Catholic high school), but the little I do know suggests to me she may be Catholic only in the sense that Madonna was Catholic- which is to say, she identified culturally with some of the symbols of the faith, but she uses them to her own ends and to carefully cultivate an image that is at once grounded in something profound, but at the same time rebelling against it, and maybe even corrupting their meanings.
"I don't know if I would consider Catholicism something that she holds in high regard Miranda," I said. "Be careful about what she promotes, I don't think they fall in line with the Gospel of Jesus."
"Well, Mom, I don't consider her a role model, I mean she wore a meat suit!"
What a relief....I think. At least Lady Gaga has some talent, there are others in the limelight who are there simply for being profane and vulgar. Better to be infamous than to be a nobody. And that is a concern, considering our natural desire to be loved and to be approved of.
And the desire to be known and loved is not just vanity or a passion to be better than every one else, though it can easily be perverted into that. In fact, in the brilliant essay The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis he discovers that many different prominent Christians, among them St. Thomas Aquinas, took the images of the glory of the redeemed literally, those who are saved will have "fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures- fame with God, approval or (I might say) 'appreciation' by God." Lewis makes the observation that we are all given the innate desire to hear the the Father say : "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." And we are all called to recall the childlike pleasure in earning the praise of those who are our "betters" (like our parents or teachers.)
From this discovery Lewis than remembers that no one can enter heaven except as a child. The humility of a child does not hold back in using his gifts to please the Father who gave them to him. He lavishes his gifts, humble or great waiting to hear the words of approval and praise. I think of my children, and how excited they are for my husband and I to open up their homemade gifts at Christmas. How quickly though, the innocent natural desire to be known and loved and delighted in by God is diverted to seeking these desires to be filled in a greedy, or self serving way. We are diverted through loss and pain, through pride and through fear. With a society rapidly losing the hope of heavenly glory, in fact, with a secular culture snatching the eternal vision away from us, it is small wonder that some would choose public humiliation in exchange for fleeting fame, which may at least seem eternal. We are taking spiritual longings and stifling them, we are exchanging our glory for shame. And what will the cost of that be?
"In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised." (page 38 The Weight of Glory)
So, what do I do to protect my children and myself from a culture that belittles the spiritual longings, but encourages shallow and false pride? How do I encourage a true authentic humility that uses the gifts that God gave them to please God, as best as they can in whatever circumstance they are in. No matter how many people say they love Lady Gaga, the only love that will ultimately truly matter to her is the love of God. If her fame impedes her awe of the Creator, and numbs her longing to be loved by Him, it is worse that being a nobody in the eyes of the world, it is Hell even now. How do we redirect our vision from earthly glory to heavenly glory?
Today as I drove my daughter, Miranda, to school she asked me when the Grammys would be on TV. I told her that they were on last night.
"They were! I wanted to watch them! Do you know who won best album?"
"No, I did not watch them either. Did you have a preference?"
"Well, I was hoping that it was Lady Gaga or Adele." (which she pronounced Adeal)
"You have heard these albums?" Miranda has an iPod, but it is loaded with Matt Maher and Audrey Assad, plus a few others, along with some apps, which are what really occupy her iPod time.
"Sure, Kelsey has them, I heard them when she was home." Kelsey is her college aged sister-and I now note that I may want to recheck her iPod music.
"Did you know that Lady Gaga is Catholic?" she asked me.
I do not know a lot about Lady Gaga (I think she went to a Catholic high school), but the little I do know suggests to me she may be Catholic only in the sense that Madonna was Catholic- which is to say, she identified culturally with some of the symbols of the faith, but she uses them to her own ends and to carefully cultivate an image that is at once grounded in something profound, but at the same time rebelling against it, and maybe even corrupting their meanings.
"I don't know if I would consider Catholicism something that she holds in high regard Miranda," I said. "Be careful about what she promotes, I don't think they fall in line with the Gospel of Jesus."
"Well, Mom, I don't consider her a role model, I mean she wore a meat suit!"
What a relief....I think. At least Lady Gaga has some talent, there are others in the limelight who are there simply for being profane and vulgar. Better to be infamous than to be a nobody. And that is a concern, considering our natural desire to be loved and to be approved of.
And the desire to be known and loved is not just vanity or a passion to be better than every one else, though it can easily be perverted into that. In fact, in the brilliant essay The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis he discovers that many different prominent Christians, among them St. Thomas Aquinas, took the images of the glory of the redeemed literally, those who are saved will have "fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures- fame with God, approval or (I might say) 'appreciation' by God." Lewis makes the observation that we are all given the innate desire to hear the the Father say : "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." And we are all called to recall the childlike pleasure in earning the praise of those who are our "betters" (like our parents or teachers.)
From this discovery Lewis than remembers that no one can enter heaven except as a child. The humility of a child does not hold back in using his gifts to please the Father who gave them to him. He lavishes his gifts, humble or great waiting to hear the words of approval and praise. I think of my children, and how excited they are for my husband and I to open up their homemade gifts at Christmas. How quickly though, the innocent natural desire to be known and loved and delighted in by God is diverted to seeking these desires to be filled in a greedy, or self serving way. We are diverted through loss and pain, through pride and through fear. With a society rapidly losing the hope of heavenly glory, in fact, with a secular culture snatching the eternal vision away from us, it is small wonder that some would choose public humiliation in exchange for fleeting fame, which may at least seem eternal. We are taking spiritual longings and stifling them, we are exchanging our glory for shame. And what will the cost of that be?
"In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised." (page 38 The Weight of Glory)
So, what do I do to protect my children and myself from a culture that belittles the spiritual longings, but encourages shallow and false pride? How do I encourage a true authentic humility that uses the gifts that God gave them to please God, as best as they can in whatever circumstance they are in. No matter how many people say they love Lady Gaga, the only love that will ultimately truly matter to her is the love of God. If her fame impedes her awe of the Creator, and numbs her longing to be loved by Him, it is worse that being a nobody in the eyes of the world, it is Hell even now. How do we redirect our vision from earthly glory to heavenly glory?
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