Our Most Sacred Institution – Really?

I find myself wondering why so many people continue to say that “marriage is our most sacred institution.”

Is that a fact?

Because it seems to me that marriage, far from being sacred, is one of the most disrespected institutions, at least here in America. I would bet it’s not all that sacred in other places, either.

The whole argument for marriage gained heat, of course, as opponents of gay marriage began to lift marriage between a man and a woman as sacred, put in place by God. That’s what makes it sacred.

But when I look at marriage in this society I don’t see sacredness. Rather, I see a mockery and manipulation of the institution. Mockery because it seems that fewer and fewer people have any intention at all of being monogamous, and manipulation because people manipulate marriage for their own gain.

The sad situation involving former NFL quarterback Steve McNair and his girlfriend Sahel Kazemi got me to thinking, once again, or more accurately wondering, why anybody continues to say that marriage is sacred.

McNair was married. He had four children. And yet, he was shacking up with Kazemi, giving her lavish lifestyle that her youth could not really even appreciate. All bets are that they had a passionate relationship, full of furious and glorious sex, and that he cemented his “love” for her with money and gifts. Kazemi was smitten, and decided she wanted him for her own … but then, (and I am just surmising), McNair probably pulled out the “m” card, and declared he loved his wife.

No divorce. You were just a fling … and Kazemi probably snapped.

I wonder if she knew she wasn’t the only girlfried, according to the most recent news reports.

Then there’s Gov. Sanford, and all the other politicians who in the last few months have had their infidelity exposed. Almost every one of our so-called heroes have been unfaithful if history may be believed. Franklin Delano Roosevelt may have been beloved to scores of poor people, but to his poor wife, he was unfaithful.

So, tell me. What is sacred about marriage?

Young people want to get married in church all the time, and the first question I ask is, “why?” To be married in church, to say promises to each other before one’s God, surmises an intention to keep the promises. And maybe some people do …but it seems to me that after the wedding, the reality of being married seeps in and people forget their vows.

One person doesn’t seem to be able to satisfy the sexual appetites and the love of being in love for far too many people.

So, why get married? Joy Behar has been with her boyfriend for years. They have said no vows. Oprah Winfrey and Stedman, again, have been together, but have not said vows. It seems that for them, their relationship is sacred and special and important.

I do not think marriage is sacred. I think it should be sacred, but it is not. The idea of marriage being sacred is an ideal. If it were really sacred, infidelity would not be so rampant.

I would rather have a good relationship than a horrible marriage any day.

And that’s a candid observation.

The Worst Day Ever

This has to be the worst day ever for the Jackson family, or for everyone who has suffered a loss.

Oh, there is the day when the person you love dies. That is a bad moment, to look at the stillness, and know there will never be any movement from this person ever again. There is the shudder you get when you touch the person and feel the eerie coolness, replacing the warmth that says there is blood flowing through the veins.

That’s a bad moment.

But the worst day ever is this day, when you walk in the funeral home or church or synagogue and see that damned casket. It isn’t as bad when you see “the body” right after it has been prepared for burial. You still have some days that “the body” will be on this earth, even if it is not breathing and talking.

You can still see him or her. You can touch …

But on this day, when that casket sits in front of the church or wherever, and you know that in a matter of hours, that box will be lowered into the ground … your guts spill out, and the supreme loss that death means for us becomes a sickening reality.

It is the worst day ever.

The apostle Paul wrote, “Oh death, where is thy victory? Where is thy sting?” We in the Christian tradition tend to take those words and work them into a reminder that because of Jesus, there is everlasting life and therefore, death did not win.

But that’s a hard line to tow on this, the worst day ever.

The good thing is that Katherine Jackson and his family and the world will always be in touch with Michael because of his music. It is timeless. He left a legacy, which is what he wanted to do.

As I was thinking about it all this morning, it occured to me that leaving a legacy was the best way, or one of the best, to help people with this “eternal life” thing. Ah, death could take away the body, but could never and can never erase the gifts of God that people use to the utmost while they are yet alive.

In that regard, death really did lose.

But on this, the worst day ever, the fact that that stupid box called a casket will take the remains of a beloved son, brother, father and icon and hold him in the ground …there is no way to erase the sense of loss everyone feels.

And that’s a candid observation.

Sarah Palin: Whatever!

I listened to Sarah Palin, the soon-to-be ex-governor of Alaska yesterday and was totally unimpressed.

I was unimpressed with her statement; it was all over the place, presented like there had been little to no preparation. She rambled; I struggled to find the center.

Then she laid the bombshell: she not only was not going to seek re-election, which was OK, but she was also resigning as governor.

What the hell?

I thought that I must have missed something in her statement. Whatever had happened to her that does not happen to all politicians? Politics is the dirtiest profession ever. There is no respect of individuals or their families; everything they do is held up to scrutiny. They are held to unrealistic expectations, are crucified when they make mistakes or change their minds; they are walking targets.

That is the nature of the game, right? Destroy someone so that you can rise?

So, what’s the deal with this whining that Palin is doing? Yes, for sure there are double standards when it comes to men and women. Any woman in a profession dominated by men knows that. Yes, the media took some cheap shots. Yes, some comments made about her family were unconscionable. I could not have borne it.

But I didn’t choose to be a politician. Palin did. She opted to play with the big boys, and then, when the big boys showed their game, she quit??? All women in politicis have had to deal with the double standard phenomenon. Hillary Clinton did, but she didn’t quit. She toughed it out. I know, she didn’t have a pregnant teen daughter, and she didn’t have an infant for people to take cheap shots at.

But she had to endure the same double standard that Palin felt.

As she talked, I found myself wondering what the real deal was or is. What, I wondered, is she up to? What is this all about? As she lifted up her infant son, I wondered if she was or is manipulating the emotions of people, women especially, who are outraged because they believe Palin’s family was unfairly attacked?

As she mentioned the mainstream media, was she endearing herself to the non-mainstream media, which some say composes the Conservative base of the Republican party? Was she, or is she, playing to the already frayed nerves of Conservatives who feel like the United States is becoming a socialist country under the presidency of Barack Obama?

Was this all a set up for the 2012 presidential race?

Today I read that Palin said the “mainstream press will never understand.” Give me a break, Governor. Mainstream, offstream, lowstream … whatever … the press is out to make news, to capture the best ratings, at the expense of anyone who has the unfortunate luck to be in the path of the tornado.

Politicians, especially, know that.

I do not know why John McCain picked her as a running mate in the first place. She never seemed ready to be president. Not of MY country. Nice and all of that, but not ready to be president. And the more she talked, and the more I realized that she seemed to play into the all-too-familiar politics of division and derision, playing on fears of people and using much overused Conservative cliches, I just moaned.

More of the same old same old.

Still, I looked on her as a viable choice for Conservatives in 2012. She was able to electrify a crowd. That’s what the Republicans are looking for now: someone to energize their base, and Palin was able to do that. I wasn’t happy thinking of her as a candidate for president, but I certainly saw her as a star whose brightness had not yet peaked.

But after yesterday, I hope she will go away. If you want to play with the big boys, you have to be willing to play the big boys’ game. That includes taking pot-shots and low-blows, in the name of political victory and gain. It’s just what you do.

You either win or lose the race, but if you win … you stay the course and take the jabs and do the work the people elect you to do. You cry in your soup when your term is over.

I would be very nervous if Palin were president. When the world started to deride her and criticize her, would she cut and run? Remember, the world is still very sexist. The double standard is not apt to go away anytime soon.

Palin has showed, at least to me, that she is not tough enough for the big boys’ game.

That is my candid observation.

The MJ Phenomenon

OK. I don’t get it.

Michael Jackson’s music was wonderful. He was an amazing entertainer. I was thinking today that I used to use “Heal the World” as background music for warm-ups for my students taking ballet and musical theater.

I used to use “Black and White” to wake my children up.

I loved his music. I used to think, watching him dance, that he had no bones! Such fluidity. It was amazing to watch.

But a week after his death, the media is still consumed with him. North Korea is firing missiles. American troops have pulled out of Iraq. The president of Honduras has been thrown out of office. The election of Ahmadinejad has been declared valid and a winner in the senator’s race in Minnesota has finally been declared.

But we are stuck on Michael Jackson.

CNN’s Larry King is at Neverland as I write this, talking with Jermaine. Matt Lauer was there this morning. Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta will talk about Michael’s possible prescription drug addiction. We are hearing about Debbie Rowe and her possible fight for custody for her children. We have heard about the will; we have been teased with the rehearsals Michael did … it goes on and on.

The memorial service is on Tuesday and we will have non-stop television coverage of that as well.

Someone help me understand.

Was it his music? And if it was, what was it about his music that has so captivated the world and pre-empted all other news?

Someone was even criticizing President Obama for not commenting on Michael’s death before today.

Excuse me?

I think I am a fairly intelligent person, but this phenomenon I do not understand. We have been in Michael Jackson’s house at Neverland, and also in his rented house in Los Angeles, Holmby Hills, to be exact.

We have been in the bedroom where alledged incidents of child molestation took place,and we have been in the room where he allegedly took his last breaths.

So, I need for someone to explain. What is this phenomenon. What is this that we are experiencing? It is unlike anything I have ever seen. I loved Michael Jackson’s music. I loved watching him.

But he was an entertainer, for goodness’ sake. He wasn’t a head of state. He didn’t bring us out of a war, improve the economy, invent anything.

But it seems that his impact on the WORLD is immeasurable.

It seems that Michael Jackson, if he didn’t change the world, certainly made a unique and powerful impact that is, at least to me, inexplicable.

It’s a candid observation that I do not understand.

Someone help me.

Black Man, White Face

I have been listening with some interest and some pain, actually, about Michael Jackson and his work to change his appearance.

Actually, I’ve been answering questions of white interviewers as they have asked, confused, why anyone would want to change his or her appearance? Why, they ask, would Michael do that?

How about because white people made it so that the only standard of “beauty” was white beauty. The white definition of beauty made some to many African Americans not want to be brown or dark-skinned. That same definition made black people ashamed of nappy hair, big lips and big hips.

Little black girls grew up wanting hair that moved and that didn’t puff up after getting wet. Black people ruined their own hair using harsh chemicals to straighten their hair out …so we could look more “white.” Some black people bleached their skin.

Black people (brown and Asian too) grew to hate the way we looked because we did not “fit in.” We could not hide our skin color or our lips or hips. Even if we managed to get a good education, which many of us did, we still could not escape our curse of being of African descent.

The European standard of beauty didn’t only affect black, brown and yellow-skinned people. I remember seeing my Jewish friends and white friends as well put their hair on ironing boards to make it straight. I remember white friends of mine being very upset that they did not have blonde hair and blue eyes – the highest rating one could receive for being beautiful according to European standards.

But at least at the end of the day, Jewish girls who got nose jobs and who straightened their hair, Hispanic girls who could downplay any “ethnic” look they had, and white girls who had brunette or red hair, could “fit in.” White America was slow to admit that someone other than a Nordic look was beautiful. Modeling agencies like the Eileen ford Agency slowly began to look at other ethnic-looking models, but only slowly …but be clear, if one looked “too black,” one could forget about getting a job as a top model.

Why doesn’t white America understand that?

I heard a Michael Jackson biographer talk about howthe pop star made disparaging remarks about black people, though he was black. That cut to my heart, if it’s true, because his own community so loved him. African Americans have hated our look because white America said we were ugly. That Michael would hate his African ethnicity so much to essentially butcher his own natural good looks is so painful to think about, and it is more painful to think that he may have hated those who so loved him.

I can remember the daughter of a friend of mine crushed at prom time. She was a beautiful, very dark-skinned girl with amazing features and a stunning head of jet black hair that fell past her shoulders. She had a boyfriend who decided he would not and could not take her to her prom because she was “too dark.”

There are still African Americans who would rather be anything other than who they are, African American men who will not date African American women, or if they do, those women have to be very light-skinned.

Everyone wants to “fit in,” but America made it hard for African Americans to do that. Instead, we stuck out like sore thumbs, walking targets for the most horrible judgments and comments to be made about who we were and what we looked like.

That’s why Michael Jackson “went there.” Obviously, there were some other things which drove him; changing his looks became an obsession, or so it seems from the outside, but clearly, his desire to change from black to white came from a hatred of what this world seemingly hates.

I am grateful that for some African Americans, at least, we have dropped the term “good hair,” meaning hair that is not nappy. In my mind, any hair on one’s head is good hair! I am glad we are free enough to wear dread locks and other natural styles. I smile when I see white people now imitating us, not only with the hairstyles, but with injections to get bigger lips, and efforts to get darker skin.

Seems we weren’t so bad after all, eh?

Wish Michael had known that.

That’s just a candid observation.