(Okay, so this is actually the 100th post but it was an honest mistake -
there were a couple of "drafts" clogging up the count)
[[ Part 1 ]]
The first verse of the song describes the life and death (from AIDS) of a young gay man, phrased as a query to God, does God care when gay men and lesbians are beaten and killed and lonely and die horrible deaths from AIDS, in the framework of the strong belief that sexual orientation is inborn, not chosen, and if you're born that way then obviously God makes you that way and does he worry about what he's created? Matt said Ed explained later this verse is about someone he knew, his young daughters' gymnastics instructor.
The second verse is about Susan Smith (if you need a refresher, click here), and I'm pretty sure this is the first song I've heard on the subject. In the song, the narrator says he had a dream about Susan Smith, in which she is the one who is drowning - there is a crowd of people on the shore, and as her lungs fill with water and she begins to sink, the crowd dissipated until there are only two people remaining - her sons Michael and Alexander. Because they are "too young to understand [her]," they are the only ones who are trying to save her, pulling her out of the water.
Jesus. And when I say that
I am praying, Jesus.
I started to title this, "I am not Ashamed, Part 5" but to totally tie it into the other posts was taking way too much mental effort. But to me, this verse is about redemption and judgment - even to a "let's hug and love everyone" person such as myself, Smith is easy to dismiss as being completely beyond redemption. She allegedly wanted to rid herself of her children so she would be free to join the man with whom she was having an affair; it's easy to call her the most selfish woman who ever lived and forget all about her.
But she's not beyond redemption. When I listened to the song the idea I had was that God was there with Michael and Alexander on the shore (or boat ramp) - that God was the two boys, loving Susan Smith no matter what she did, seeing her only as their mother/God's child, reaching out to her and loving her, no matter what.
No one is beyond redemption. No one is beyond the reach of God's love. God and Michael and Alexander love Susan Smith beyond all reason; God loves all of us beyond reason.
I used the phrase "beyond all reason" before learning that's the name of the book written by Smith's husband, David Smith. As you perhaps can imagine (or not, good God how could you and, again, I'm praying), he was devastated to learn what his wife did; he pushed hard for her to receive the death penalty and admitted that every day of the trial, he watched her in court and thought about killing her. He also considered killing himself, for a couple of years I think, but has since remarried and has two children, a son and a daughter.
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Between hearing the song and writing this post, I read a bunch of online articles on Susan Smith. It was difficult to find anything written from a detached, professional/journalist point of view. I've never met her, I don't know what or how she thinks, and what she thinks and says now, about what happened almost 20 years ago. And if I begin to imagine her crime, I want to drive to the prison in SC and hurt her. I want the state to kill her, when I think about those poor little boys.
But then I take a deep breath. I recall the multiple articles that cited the repeated sexual abuse she was subjected to by her stepfather, throughout her teenage years and continuing as "consensual" sex as an adult. I recall that these aren't just hastily made allegations, possibly made to shift attention from herself, but that the stepfather admitted on the witness stand, under oath, that he had done this. I am in no way offering this as an excuse for her behavior, but I am saying that someone who grows up in circumstances like this, generally has a vastly different understanding of how people should behave and what parents should do to take care of their children and what "boundaries" are and ... nearly everything, from lots of other folks.
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I suppose I'm trying to make two main points here, (1) Susan Smith did a horrible thing, that is true. You will not likely hear me say any different. And, she is no more in need of God's grace and forgiveness than I. God loves me, and Matt, and Simon and David, and Michael and Alexander, and David Smith - he loves us all, we are all his children. And, (2) God is the final judge of Susan Smith. Not me. Not the judge and jury, really, in terms of final judgment. Smith continues to make news occasionally; two guards at her original correctional facility were fired for having sex with her, and she's had a suicide attempt (and reportedly engages in self-harm/cutting). The online articles mostly refer to her as "baby killer" and "monster mom."
The tenuous connection here, between this song and the "I am not Ashamed" posts is that of judgment, specifically self-satisfied judgment, specifically from a great distance, specifically when it's offered by someone who identifies first and foremost as a Christian. The phrases above do remind me of the "welfare" sayings - this is someone you have never seen and will probably never see or meet; you'll just make your little statements and go about your business and not think about poor people or criminals or social and educational inequality or how little a "welfare check" actually is or the lack of mental health and rehabilitation services in prisons again, until another opportunity to do the exact same thing again, makes itself available.
In the first "I am not Ashamed" post, I asked folks to stop for a second before they "like" something on Facebook, or make a snide remark about someone they don't know, that they pause to consider what it is they want to say, and what they want to accomplish by saying it.This song is a reminder to me that it is not my job or your job or anyone on Earth's job to determine the worth of an individual, to completely write off someone as hopeless, to determine who is a worthwhile person and who is not. It was law enforcement's job to catch her, the justice system's job to determine her guilt, the Dept. of Correction's job to make sure she doesn't escape. Even if she'd been sentenced to death, it's still not my job to pass my own personal judgement on her fitness as a human being.
Matt said that Ed Kilbourne also shared he'd learned that Susan Smith grew up attending a United Methodist Church in upstate South Carolina, one at which he'd performed several times when she was a teenager; he wondered if she'd heard him sing.
Beyond what I just wrote, I know nothing about Susan Smith's religious formation/upbringing. I don't know if she knows, or if she really believes, that forgiveness is available. I don't know if she's asked. I don't even know if she cares. I don't really even know if I care (I hadn't thought about this case in forever until I heard this song; I'll probably go back to not thinking about it again fairly soon). But ... it's there for her. For everybody.
Other Thoughts
There's a parable in Matthew chapter 20: 1-16 entitled "The Laborers in the Vineyard." You are free to look it up; it's too long to include here. A summary is: day laborers are waiting for work and a vineyard owner picks some of them up early in the morning; they strike a deal for the daily wage and work all day. The owner comes back at noon to get more workers, and again at 5 for more; at the end of the day he pays them all the same, the usual daily rate. Those who have been there all day are ticked but the owner reminds them they have been paid exactly as they'd agreed, and says, (v.14) "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first and the first will be last."
When I read this commentary to Matt, he worried that it might be an over-simplification in the other direction, but I like it. We discussed the "Promised Land" briefly in our Young Adults Sunday school class the day after I heard it; our teacher made a comment to the effect of, "People have a notion that, 'You're gonna get what you deserve'." To which Pastor Matt replied, "God I hope not."
The other passage I thought about was Ecclesiastes, chapter 11: 1 - 7: Send out your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will get it back. Divide your means seven ways, or even eight, for you do not know what disaster may happen on earth. When clouds are full, they empty rain on the earth; whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. Whoever observes the wind will not sow; and whoever regards the clouds will not reap. Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother's womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening do not let your hands be idle, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good."
I'm not prepared to embark upon a thorough theological discussion of God's sovereignty and "God's Plan" and whatnot, but for the purposes of this discussion I look at both these passages as saying, Keep your head down, do the right thing and mind your own business. God will do what God will do and sometimes it makes immediate sense, sometimes it all fits together later, and sometimes we never understand it, but God knows what God is doing.
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"Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action." - Cyril Connolly
Redemption just means you
just make a change in your life
versus what you were doing,
which was wrong. - Ice T
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