Life In Public

Every Wednesday this semester we feature reflections and stories written by some of our Catalyst interns. Today's post is written by senior Allison Frase: 

I promise I use to not know that much about pop culture and the world of celebrities. I didn’t know that Jessica Simpson and Nick Lache had gotten a divorce until after I returned from Thanksgiving break, and someone casually mentioned it in my night class. Everyone around me made it pretty clear that I was probably the last person in the world to find out, that even their grandmother knew

All of this changed with when I set up my igoogle page. If you are unfortunate enough to not have an igoogle page, let me explain. On this website, you can choose different features to show on your homepage, such as the weather, wikipedia links, daily photographs, and headlines to various news websites.

At the top of my igoogle page, I have People’s headlines. These inform me of the important events in celebrity world, such as the death of Heath Ledger, or the birth of Christina Aguilera’s baby. And unlike Time’s headlines, that say things like “The Clinton’s Double-team Obama,” which require you to click on the link to find out what that really means, People’s headlines are clear: Britney Spears steps out in wedding dress. I don’t need to click on the link to figure that one out.

So, basically what this means is, now I know everything about Britney Spears. The girl can’t do anything without the whole world knowing. She says something in a British accent, and the whole world knows (which makes me glad I don’t have paparazzi following me around.)

And this is what surprises me even more: everyone has to put her two cents in about her life. Britney needs to do this, or that, or just come to me Britney, I can help, she’s so crazy, etc. People just want to comment.

But then it hit me when the song Jesus Christ Superstar came on my ipod. Jesus went through much of the same thing. I mean, people followed him everywhere. The poor guy had to sail across the lake to have a moment’s peace. Instead of hiding in the bushes to get to him, people cut out roofs and lowered mats down (motivations are slightly different, but still, the fact is, people want to touch their life).

And if people think Britney Spears is crazy, what would they say about a man who hung out with prostitutes and broke social rules? The Bible gives a glimpse of some of the things people did say, and many of them were not kind.

I can’t imagine carrying out Jesus’ life in such a context. It had to be exhausting, maybe overwhelming. But we all know that He did it anyway, and his popularity or unpopularity never failed to stop his ministry.

I wonder what I would do if so much of the public turned against me. I kind of think I would hide in my room, and wait for it all to blow over. I’m sure glad Jesus didn’t. He carried on despite a lot of sharks out to do him wrong. Thank goodness.