To whom you belong

"This isn't easy, this isn't clear, and you call on Jesus when you're here, then confusion and the doubts you have up and walk away, they walk away, when a heart breaks."
Tweak on Ben Rector's "When a Heart Breaks"

Over the past few days the American public has erupted into a firestorm over the conduct of one twenty year old. A young women who, whether you know it or not, was born with the legal name of "Destiny Hope." Destiny Hope Cyrus, who is now legally "Miley", turned an entire nation, and maybe the entire world, on its ear with her racy performance at the VMA's the other night, but some, like me, had no idea what had happened. Now, of course, I know what happened. I'm not sure if I think that's what Miley wanted, I'm on the fence about that, but regardless of her intent, my understanding of the situation is unlike most of those in mainstream Christian culture. As I watched the reactions to the situation (the only way I knew it happened in the first place) the Christians in my life took one of two stances and filled every avenue they could find with either shock/disgust or pity.
While I probably tend more toward pity in this situation, I'm not one who is going to write a letter to Miley telling her why she's wrong like some bloggers have chosen to do. No, I'm not going to write a letter to anyone, not even the little girls who think, or thought, Miley Cyrus was a hero.

What I am going to say is something that may not be typical, or even comfortable, for a lot of people.
 Miley Cyrus has become famous by singing about some very provocative and controversial topics, among them, drugs.
Drugs. This young woman, just out of her teens has popularized and perhaps glamorized the idea of parties and substances that cause people to fall as fast as Adam and Eve in the garden that day.
Adam and Eve. They were set up in the middle of paradise, walking and talking with the Most High God, until a snake told them they should desire something else, something better, something more.
 I guess all sin is like that, but, somehow addiction causes me to cringe a little deeper, perhaps because I saw, and have seen what it does to someone, day in, day out.
This young woman's fame has given her a platform to do so much good, and yet she has, whether consciously or  not, championed things in her music that are often dark and destructive.
Her performance, to me, takes a back seat to all of the things her music seems to scream.
I think about what I WOULD say to her if she were sitting on my couch with her head on my shoulder like the three girls I currently invest in who just exited their teen years.
I think back to a conversation I had months ago with a friend who said to me "Before you consider yourself a student, a lawyer, or a handicapable person, remember to whom you belong."

My heart breaks and my eyes burn as I fight to compose myself thinking about that young woman, and what she knows...
I ache that she knows, or at least seems to know, what addiction looks like, what fame can do, and what it feels like to yearn for attention so desperately that any kind will do.
My heart breaks as I remember addiction, not for myself, but as I watched it, not as a glamorous party, but as a bulldozing devastation that altered the course of my life forever. Choices. Joints. Hits. Pills. Wishes. Prayers. If I could talk to her, to that little girl with such fame...I'd say "remember, remember to whom you belong."
I can't do that. Instead, I sit here thinking about how there are better things to sing about than drugs, better things to do than dance on a stage and have people talk about you for days, and I think about how drugs can obliterate so much future, and do so every day. I think about how what Miley sings about, though often glamorized, often kills people. I think about what I understand about the things she seems to draw attention to, and I remember being a child terrified because of the effects of sex, and of drugs. I remember dark rooms, strange people, I even saw the inside of a prison...
But...sitting around passing judgment on that poor girl...well, it's just not right. When Adam fell, so stumbled the whole world.
I think about how no one has a right to judge her, no matter her name or her job, for what she has done, or failed to do. I'm all for accountability, people, really, but, I mean, come on, will you? Jesus Himself said that the sinless person could toss the stone first, and everybody left. Ain't nobody got room to be talkin' bout Miley. No one. Not you, and certainly not me.
Instead I sit here sad, not for myself, or for any one person, but for the fact that as a whole, my generation, and the ones after me, well, we have forgotten that piece of info my friend so desperately wanted me to remember. We have so quickly forgotten to whom we belong. I grieve, as any human would, as Miley's indiscretion coincides closely with a time when the effects of sin are totally blatant and staring my own life in the face in a way that perhaps I haven't experienced in awhile, or ever.

I grieve as I realize I've understood, at least from a short distance, some of the things in that young woman's music. I grieve at the judgment, the fractured hearts, the broken lives our country both glorifies and belittles, and I grieve, most of all, for the fact that it's really true, it's true that though we live in a fallen world, and things will never be perfect this side of heaven, so much of what grieves us, what shatters us, what keeps us in the dark, is the fact that we have so quickly forgotten the one thing we should always know. We've forgotten we are His. We've forgotten to whom we belong.

Romans 8:15

Crying Abba, Always,
Courtney