For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll
never walk alone." -- Audrey Hepburn
She leaves me with something difficult to chew on. "You know, we all live in a little pond compared to the big world. I think it's always important to say that my reality is a tiny piece of the picture. All the kids laid up in St. Jude's hospital are not worried about what the stylist did on that magazine cover, and at the Habitat [for Humanity] build nobody was concerned with an imaging problem. I think in a way, we can sort of take a microscope and say, 'Oh no! What are we doing here?' And in the big picture it does not matter."
A bit of a light bulb goes off as I consider the weight of her words. I am suddenly embarrassed when I think about how many hours I've spent talking to artists over the last four weeks about beauty and self-image and the selling of our selves. And I wonder suddenly, 'Does it matter?' I feel momentarily insecure about my decision to even write this story... 'Who cares? So Christian artists care too much about how we look ... big deal. (Meanwhile, in Sudan ... )'
But as Amy elaborates, she sort of talks me off the ledge she just unknowingly pushed me out on. She continues, " ... as each of us matures, we find ourselves going, 'I can't believe I let some of the goofiest stuff rob me of enjoying life.'" And I realize that she's talking about the gift of retrospect that usually grants us this luxury. It is the act of looking in the rearview mirror and watching those mountains disappear into mere speed bumps that give us grounded perspective.
I read back over the words of Amy's mother, 'What matters to you now will not matter to you then ... ' And I realize that the cultural preoccupation with self-image and the unbalanced way it seems to live in the Christian music industry is a now issue for me as much as I wish it was a then issue. And while shining a spotlight on that might only seek to draw more unnecessary attention, piles and pages of transcripts scattered across my desk remind me that spotlights not only showcase, they expose. And that an open dialogue has the potential to be less about chatter and might just be more about change. Does it matter? I spoke with 13 artists who think it does.
Does it matter to you?
Well?
Go ahead ... We're listening.
On myCCM:
myCCM.org/NicholeNordeman
myCCM.org/BethanyDillon
myCCM.org/SaraGroves