Frustrated Greatness

I just finished watching a documentary on the life of Marvin Gaye. It was on WNED tonight. It aired right after a documentary on the life of another great musical artist from the same generation, Sam Cooke. I don't know if they were adjacent for a reason but they were both, in life and in death, similar. Both were incredibly talented. They both changed music and its trajectory. Their music was positively charged. Their songs have a way of just making you feel good if that's all they end up doing. Of course, their music stood for more than just that.

What's strangely coincidental is how they both met the same fate. Both were shot to death "before their time". Isn't that a great turn of phrase? "Before their time?" There really is no such thing but that's not the point I'm interested in making tonight. What struck me as tragic and profound was their level of greatness from a talent perspective. Both Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye were seriously talented. Just listen to their music. Yet both left this world laying on the ground as their life slowly slipped away.

Sam Cooke met his fate at the hands of a landlord. He was in her building, it may have been a hotel, with a prostitute that he had met that night at a bar. Whether he knew she was a prostitute or not I'm not sure. It doesn't matter. She ended up with him at this place. The story goes that she attempted to steal his pants which had a lot of cash in the pockets. He ran out of the room and hunted down the landlord because he felt she was involved in the shakedown. One thing led to another and Sam Cooke was shot.

Marvin Gaye was a troubled man. He grew up with a father who was both a Pentecostal preacher and a cross dresser. I guess he struggled with the spiritual and secular duality of life and never did quite figure out how to reconcile it all. He had serious drug addiction. His story goes that one night at his parents house he was defending his mother against his father in an argument. His father grabbed a gun that Marvin had purchased for him some time before. What happened next has already been revealed. Marvin Gaye was shot to death by his own father with his own gun.

I guess the idealist in me wants to try to take something away from all of this. I want to find the moral of the story, the lesson to be learned. I suppose there are a few things to appreciate here. What stands out to me is the tragedy of unrealized greatness. Even despite all of their achievements and the trappings of success they couldn't escape sad and tragic deaths. Now I'm no Marvin Gaye or Sam Cooke but it's hard not to think of myself in their place. It's easy to think that we're exempt from those kinds of events and troubles but neither of them planned to leave this world the way they did. Neither wrote that in a five year plan. Certainly they made choices that led them to those places but we're making choices everyday that could just as easily go sour. What's preventing us from making one bad choice that turns into a slightly worse choice that turns into our last choice?

I'm not trying to be over-dramatic. I just think it's healthy to realize that our actions aren't exempt from consequences. Those tragedies that we see and pity people for could easily be us one day. To be safe, I put my faith in Christ. If there truly is any remedy or precaution then surely he is it.

It's a new year

Today is the first day of the New Year. 2010. A new decade too. We'll see what the future holds for us. It's one thing to sit and dream about where you'll be in 5 or 10 years. What will your life be like? Family? Job? Home? It's another thing entirely to look back and see where you've come in the same amount of time.

I was sitting around the house today and asked Meredith (my wife) what she thought we'd be up to in 5 years. She didn't really know. Not that I expected her to. It made me think about what we were doing 5 years ago. 5 years ago we had just gotten married the previous summer. We were living in our first apartment. I was still working for a cellular communications company at a retail outlet. We were attending a well known and successful (in some ways) mega church. Fast forward 5 years to today and it's a bit different. We now own a house and have for almost three years. We have two children. I work as a marketing consultant for a media company. Meredith stays home with the children and works part-time. We are involved in planting a community of Christians (also successful in some ways) that uses a bar in downtown Buffalo as it's public homebase. A lot can change in 5 years.

We've been blessed in many ways in the past 5 years. I can see God's working in our lives and those around us. I've certainly had my share of failures. I've done some stupid things and said some stupid things too. Some things change and some things stay the same. Good thing God's grace is more tolerant than my will is obedient. While I strive to follow Christ in action I've seen myself take a back seat in order to fit in. Sometimes just out of selfishness. This is the thing that I'd like to see change in the next 5 years. Perhaps sooner? That certainly would be welcome.

So we'll see what the future holds for us. I hope that your future brings you greater hope and greater closeness to our creator. Greater purpose and vision. Greater clarity and wisdom. Most of all, greater relationships that have a greater impact on our communities.

Happy New Year.