In Loving Memory: Whitney Houston

With a heavy heart I felt led to write this blog.  No one is beyond God’s reach, or His grace.  Too often we seem to forget this when it comes to celebrities.  Yesterday after enduring temperatures that would cause even the Godliest person to lose their religion, I learned of the sudden passing of Whitney Houston. Immediately I begin to mentally brace myself for the onslaught of hateful, venomous, cruel, and insensitive comments that always make their appearance on numerous social networking sights when celebrities die.  It hasn’t even been 24 hours and I’ve not seen this much mudslinging since the death of Michael Jackson.  It just amazes me that a person can live 48 years and the instant they transition, how quickly people are to dig up the moments perhaps when they were not at their best.  In 48 years of living surely the media, can find some way to celebrate this beautiful life with dignity? Ratings simply can’t be that important that rehashing one’s troubles overshadows their entire life as a whole.  For the people who always seem to be able to find a joke in death, I wish you could show me how you do it. How do you find a family never seeing their loved one funny?  I can still remember receiving the news of my only brother’s passing like it was yesterday and there was nothing funny about it. There was nothing comical about my Mother having to bury her only Son.  There was nothing especially humorous about knowing my twin nieces would never know their Father.  There was nothing particularly amusing as I watched my 25 year old brother’s casket being lowered into the cold earth.  I don’t know, maybe something is wrong with me that I can’t seem to jump in on the fun when celebrities pass away bandwagon regardless of the life they have lived.

How dare we discard people simply because they failed to be perfect?  We’re too busy looking for other’s people’s dirt aren’t we? I honestly believe the world derives some perverse sense of pleasure from knowing every dirty detail of another person’s life.  Why? It makes is feel better about the crap we do doesn’t it? Sure it does. We don’t mind berating Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston because it makes us feel better about ourselves.  We the people, have this amazing knack for forgetting that we are in fact the ones who place celebrities on pedestals.  I think what we as fans fail to realize is a manmade pedestal is bound to fall simply because it is made out of praise that’s often disingenuous, conditional, and counterfeit.  Then when these flawed human beings fall from grace, we have the intestinal fortitude to get all indignant about it.  I say it all the time, but perfection is way too boring for me.  There’s no room for improvement, no teachable moments, nothing to learn from and certainly nowhere else to go once it’s reached.  My prayers and my deepest sympathies go out to all of you who’ve had to deal with a recent loss. My heart is heavy for those of you who are still crying, still unable to get rid of “their” things, still hoping it’s a dream you’ll soon wake from.  The circumstances surrounding my brother’s death were awful.  The comments from people who didn’t even know him were just as cruel, but beyond this, was my brother, the man who helped me deliver my first child.  Right now most people are so steeped in speculation about Whitney’s death because they don’t have anything specific to go on. Isn’t that what we do? We fill in the blanks with sound bytes from TMZ, CNN or the proverbial horse’s mouth? Whitney Houston’s legacy will live on through her music. She is more than her mistakes. You are more than your mistakes.  I pray this day that you re freed from condemnation, guilt, blame and grief.  I don’t know what you’ve done it’s really a moot point, because you aren’t beyond God’s reach. If anyone of us were to take a good look at the places God’s grace can reach, we’d soon find it reaches celebrities too.  God’s grace puts a positive spin on all of our mistakes. 

Rest in Heaven Whitney Houston