PENnED

My wife and I watched Cher at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace Las Vegas. For her grand entrance, the daring and barely clad 62 year-old Cher who looks half her age–thanks to modern science!–makes a 40-foot descent over the audience aboard what she calls her “Flying Wallenda, Evel Knievel death-mobile.” Then, to silence some critics (?) and at the expense of the men in the audience who have given in to their wives to watch her (“OK, let’s watch this bitch perform and get it over with”) she blurts out a monologue, à la comedienne. She imagines her Flying Wallenda falling on the audience and killing some of them. The bad thing is that she also dies as a result of the fall. But because she is an Oscar winner, Cher will be CNN’s breaking news!  But about the rest of those who die, the news network’s ticker would simply say, “some unnamed people also died.” This may not sound that funny in print, but I had a great laugh.

Seriously, however, the joke makes me think seriously about what life is all about. Is making a name that important? Does it really matter? What if you’re just one of the unnamed folks? I think fame, or lack of it, does not determine a person’s value. I believe that every person has intrinsic value as “God’s creation.” Every person is God’s unique work of art. The sad thing is, not everyone lives according  to her or his special purpose.

According to the Holy Book, people are “dead in (their) transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). And, of course, dead people cannot make themselves alive. That’s the bad news. But here’s the good news:  because of God’s “great love” and “rich mercy” anyone can be made alive through faith in Christ!  As the Apostle Paul puts it, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). In Christ God can “re-create” us, not as sculptures to be displayed in some museum, but as living works of art.  “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). And so, we are presented with an opportunity to live fully and meaningfully.

My faith as a Christian is part of me. So the things I say here may be colored by my faith. And it’s quite OK if sometimes you believe what I say. Anyway, truth is truth… even if the guy that says it is me.