On the Life of a Celebrity

The first picture was taken in Lake Tahoe last summer. Jericho yelled from across the room at the nature center, "Hey mom! Raise the Hoof!"

Poor little Judah will probably cringe when looking through his scrapbooks, because we've taken so many goofy pictures of him as a toddler. But this binky one was too cute to resist. We got a lot of laughs while we were out and about. Little old men chuckling, that sort of thing. Fun stuff.

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Yesterday during our Sunday School fellowship, Judah said one of his first, clear sentences. "Where my donut?" He promptly made his way to the table and took one for each hand. Lol. His idea of takeaway value in Sunday School varies quite drastically from ours.

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On the Life of a Celebrity

The headline on my homepage's entertainment section last night read, "Nicole Kidman bombs with Invasion."

I know nothing about her latest movie project, but I can't help but to feel a little sorry for her these past couple of years. While I know she went into this profession with her eyes wide open, to be under such scrutiny by the general public all the time, to have her life's successes and failures splashed regularly across the news media, and to have millions of people believe the reports no matter how much of it is true or false would take a very thick-skinned woman to just pick up and keep going. Seeing headlines that misrepresented the real me, or portrayed me in an unfavorable way would make me bawl my eyes out everytime.

But I have to admire her grit. For international discussion to be made about her failed first marriage, speculation to be made about her second marriage, discussion as to who got the raw deal in her divorce from Tom, and whether or not it was her inability to conceive that drove Tom away, or her inability to please Keith that sent him to rehab for drug or alcohol dependency has to be deeply hurtful. Like salt on open wounds. Just because she is a celebrity does not mean that she doesn't still have feelings. I don't envy her one bit. Her fame has brought with it a fair amount of heartache.

Could you imagine if every time you were out in a public place, every nuance, expression or tone of your voice was being recorded by paparazzi, sensationalized and relayed instantly to some broadcaster who will have it on the airwaves or in print in less than 24 hours, most likely not in it's original context? How about every fight with your husband being laid out for the world to see, and custody issues being aired like dirty laundry, growing even uglier than ever due to what the tabloids are saying about it?

And what of every ounce you gain or lose being documented and recorded for posterity, to be printed in the tabloids at every opportunity, no matter how old the photo? It's like those bad angle or swimsuit shots, the sans make-up, mid-bite or blinking shots that most of us toss when we get our pictures back, all surfacing at once on national TV. And the paparazzi prowl like wolves after babies are born, trying to find a really unflattering shot of the postpartum flab.

Not to mention every poor dating decision you ever made, even the inconsequential one-time or blind dates that you'd forgotten about suddenly bubbling up to the surface because some obscure 'ex' did a tell-all interview with some gossip columnist.

It just never ends for them. No wonder they shell out mega bucks for their bevy of stylists and consultants who advise them on everything from dental care to cosmetic surgery, physical fitness, hair styles, nails, wardrobe, appropriate car choices, landscapers and other experts that help to improve the curb appeal of their homes, lest somebody find them somehow lacking, and single them out of the crowd for a public flaying. Being dissected in the public eye is never pretty. The dirt comes out.

It's not surprising then that with this sort of pressure upon them all the time, many celebrities are driven to eating disorders, or to get nipped and tucked to the enth degree, or develop such bad anxiety that they have no appetite and waste away to nothingness. You've probably heard the stories about the supermodels that were deprived of all food except lettuce and maybe a couple of jars of baby food, lest a single ounce be added to their flesh in order to keep their careers. What would life be like without the ability to join friends or family for a nice meal?

I imagine that for a celebrity, it's something of a love-hate relationship they have with Hollywood. Naturally, they enjoy the notoriety, the opportunities that didn't exist before, the higher standard of living and all the other trappings that come with fame. On the other side of the coin, however, they must loathe the negative publicity. The cameras always in their faces. The scrutiny. The hype. The paparazzi that take pictures with their telephoto lessons through their home windows, the psychotic fans that break into their homes and sleep outside their garage doors hoping for a glimpse of them. Theirs is a life in a fishbowl.

Then there is the pressure to stay at the top of their game, lest they end up on the don't fashion lists, or among the has-beens and one-hit wonders that end up in the 'Where are they now' features. It has to be absolutely exhausting. Wearing. Wearying. Jennifer Lopez was recently quoted as saying, "I wake up every day and worry that it all might end; you just never know in this industry...but it is this that motivates me to just keep working harder..." The bigger your fame, it seems, the bigger your worries. While regular folks may worry about making ends meet, in spite of their material success, it's still a fight to 'survive' in a dog-eat-dog world.

Give me the anonymity of a Middle-American housewife any day! I'm happy to say that I can safely indulge in my once-monthly trip to Cheesecake Factory without worry, and savor every bite of my Godiva Triple Chocolate cheesecake without a giant picture of my swimsuit-clad cellulite and an inset of me shoveling bite after rapturous bite into my mouth highlighted shamefully in the tabloids.

There are some lessons to be learned from all this for the follower of Christ. We, too, should be concerned about how others perceive us, not because we don't want to be embarrassed or ashamed, but because we are ambassadors for Christ! We need to take every precaution to ensure that our daily lives reflect Him from minute to minute in all that we do. It means thinking about each and every decision we make in light of how it could affect our testimony in this world. Are we credible witnesses for Him, or hypocrites? Are we phonies, or do our lives just exude and spill the love of Christ out into all those we come into contact with?

In the same way that a celebrity must always be conscious of their appearance because their careers could depend upon it, a Christian must be conscious of their witness, because the Salvation of others could depend upon it.

A celebrity has to stay 'visible' if they are to continue getting the big roles. Likewise, believers are to shine as cities on a hill rather than be hide-away or secret agent Christians. We're to be so devoted to our Lord that our lives reflect it. And it will set us apart from the rest of the world. I've noticed that in times of crisis, many turn to Christians for answers. But there are also the times we'll be scrutinized. Scorned. Persecuted. Rejected for our faith. Unlike Hollywood, however, the Lord will not allow us to be put to shame. And followers of Christ are rewarded in Heaven for the work we've done for Him here on earth.

Money and fame are nice, but temporal. But those things we do for the Lord will last!