As you may know, I have one of those free hotmail account. It's free because it contains advertising. I've been looking at this Brittany Spears graphic all week. It links to a breathless reocount of the latest installment in the Spears family saga. I've been trying to ignore it in a noble but ultimately futile effort. Today I faced it head on and immediately thought, hmmmm... could this possibly be any more crass? The woman is melting down in front of the whole world. We might want to consider giving her a half hour or so out of the spotlight.

You want to know why Britney is melting down like this? Of course not, but let me tell you anyway. It's simply this: Even while Britney's life is coming apart at the seams, we're still exploiting her for advertising revenue. That's why. That's it - right there.

And you want to know what else? I've been like everybody else on the planet. I've watched her marriage come apart, watched her do the 24 hour rehab, seen the party pictures, seen the head shaving, seen pretty much all of it. And not once did I entertain the thought to stop and pray for a young, intelligent, talented woman who is obviously in a lot of pain, who has obviously been in pain for years, who will have a long and difficult road ahead if she wants to find freedom from that pain. What makes celebrities different from you or I? What makes them less in need of God's grace and great love than you or I? There might be a dozen reasons why their lives bear no resemblance to ours whatsoever, but there's absolutely no reason why their heart is any different than yours or mine. Yet I see them as being untouchable by life, unassailable by the pains and woundings of the world. Why? It's that assumption again, that one about money changing everything, about what success is, about wealth and status and privilege being goals in themselves, worthy goals, the 'real' goals. Seeing beyond that, I'm learning, is incredibly difficult. It goes against everything our society tells us is true, against everything we know and think and feel in the world, in our flesh and bones. Yet to see the heart, to see the image of God in everyone is to see God himself, is to touch upon the divine, is to enter the very work and presence of God in the world. 

This, then, must now be the way in which I live this brief life God has given me:  attempting to see the love God has for everyone I meet, regardless of who they are, of where they are, of what the world says they are. To see the love of God for everyone, and to enter into that love... And yet, I feel that same pain within my own heart I've felt so many times before. Can I see that same love that God has for me? Can I rest in that love, and abide in that love, and embrace as I am embraced by that love? Can I know - finally know - that God loves me too?

And another question haunts me tonight, just as it has haunted me all week. Is it possible - might it just be possible - that Britney Spears is a prophet? That God is saying something through her, that she is a living image of what worshipping fame and fortune really is? Britney Spears might very well be a chosen vessel through whom God is speaking, and If she is then I hope we hear what God is saying before it's too late - too late for Britney, too late for all of us.