In the 90’s George Michael sang about freedom from an image he wanted to break out of. He felt his inner world wasn’t matching his outer world. And the outer world was winning, making him out to be a lier. His great voice, solo carreer and his shaking ass, made him a heart throb, and he and the investors associated with George were doing the Jitterbug all the way to the bank from his stonewashed jeans, tunes, AND from his public persona. Dana Carvey had a great bit on Saturday Night Live doing a caracature of Michael and his ass. “Look at my butt Dennis, LOOK AT IT! It’s perfectly round…It’s a perfect circle. Scientist at NASA use it to calibrate their instruments… you can’t take your eyes off of it. LOOK AT IT DENNIS!” Apparently Dennis Miller and the women of the world looking at George constricted his ass too much.
He wrote a song called freedom ’90 coming out of the closet, addressing his own sexuality and how he didn’t care what it did to his career; the fact was he wasn’t going to live a lie any more. The women of the world need to know that he can’t be a hetero-sex symbol. No! He was now breaking free from the clothes of his image that he had agreed to in the inception of his career because “Sometimes the clothes do not make the man”.
This probably had a huge public impact on him as an artist… Record Sales… And girls may have been a little red in the face as they took down their Vintage Wham Poster. But George was free. Liberated from people’s misconceptions and his conscience was lighter because of it. From a purely financial outlook it might have been a dumb move. From a career standpoint, it might have been shooting yourself in the foot. Apparently George’s executives told him just that and he addressed it in the song “Ill hold on to my freedom. May not be what you want from me. Just the way it’s got to be”
15 years later Dave Chappelle, a comic known for his hugely successful show on comedy central “the Chappelle Show” found his freedom from the limelight by simply going away. After the first season a major success, Dave found himself signing a second and third season for $50 million. Dave's trademark humor—outrageous, politically incorrect explorations of popular culture, race, sex, drugs and fame—infused every skit. His fans loved quoting his lines, especially his impersonation of funk music impresario Rick James. “I’m Rick James Bitch.” Then, in April 2005, a year after signing his two-year contract to continue the show, Dave abruptly walked off the set and…disappeared. Almost no one, including his wife and kids, knew where he went.
Some people thought he went nuts, others thought he was doing drugs. It was leaked to the press he had pnumonia. In reality he went to South Africa to reflect. He ended up seeing that though his sketches sparked controversy, some of his sketches started to make him feel "socially irresponsible.”
One particular sketch Dave wasn’t particularly proud of was about a pixie (played by Dave) who appeared in black face, which Dave described as the "visual personification of the "N" word."
"There was a good-spirited intention behind it," Dave says. "So then when I'm on the set, and we're finally taping the sketch, somebody on the set [who] was white laughed in such a way—I know the difference of people laughing with me and people laughing at me—and it was the first time I had ever gotten a laugh that I was uncomfortable with. Not just uncomfortable, but like, should I fire this person?"
After this incident, Dave began thinking about the message he was sending to millions of viewers. Dave says some people understood exactly what he was trying to say with his racially charged comedy…while others got the wrong idea. He began to see that his show was changing culture, and to see white suburbia quote his lines, and not really GET IT, began to be desturbing.
So Dave shut it down. He needed to be freed from his own machine; escape his own creation so he fled the scene. "I felt really guilty about being asleep at the wheel," He remembers. "I felt guilty about it because I forgot the hostility of the environment of show business. … There's some quote that someone told me that says, 'Success takes you where character cannot sustain you.'" These two men found that they needed to be freed from their own momentum. The decisions that got them to their place of fame, didn’t match who they were. They eventually they had to address it.
This isn’t a new theme, Shakespeare’s tragic character Polonius who prats around the play Hamlet rambles his wisdom to his son Laertes: “Above all, to thine own self be true.” Ironically Polonius finds his “being true to himself” also causing his death. His desire for social advancement, his fear of losing his position in the kingdom and his need for popularity make him spy on Hamlet, and eventually skewered behind a tapestry.
Most of us will never have to deal with the huge financial crunch of having a multimillion dollar carreer, compromise “who you are.” We don’t have the luxury or delemma of Shutting Down a show that pays 50 million. But most of us CAN imagine getting skewered in the end of what we “thought” was a good idea. We can imagine that, because we’ve experienced that. We go down roads that make us say… Hey this isn’t me. Or maybe that’s what we would say if we were paying attention. When OUR outside world begins to not match our inside world, it begins a huge conflict within us and we have two choices: To Listen or To Not Listen.
To not listen just prolongs the inevitable. It lets it grow, until it’s a magnificent skyscraper that makes a glorious crash. To not listen makes our inner world louder, so that we need to cover it up with our own yelling, it makes our actions stupid and careless, and allows our fears to take the reigns. Also to not listen is being a coward.
So it seems like there IS only one choice. However, if you are anything like me, to not listen is your normal route. For me… I think it’s because I’m dense or not aware. But there are items in my life that I fear, and I plug my ears because I’m too scared to address it.
If you aren’t someone with faith, I’d pay attention to this inner voice. It might be telling you something that you need to hear.
There was a man without faith that the bible spends several chapters on. Who knows if he ever had an inner voice. Growing up being a sovriegn or a god to Egypt has got to mess you up a little bit. But when Pharoh met with a representative of the Slaves , an inner voice might have come in handy. When Moses and his brother came over and said hey let the slaves go. I’m not sure if Moses understood the economic ramifications of what he was asking. The Hebrew people were an intigral part of Egypt’s economy, and I’m sure Pharoh thought Moses’ request was a joke. How can he just let money like that go walking out the door? As a nation’s leader it wasn’t the soundest of economic decisions; so it makes sense that he would say no. But as each plague riqued havok on his country, it was apparent that the outer world was not matching his inner world. In this case it seemed as though he was taking Polonius’ advice. “Stick to you’re guns pharoh. Show em who’s boss. To Thine own self be true.” Or in egyptian:
It’s interesting that the plagues one by one took out the specific gods of egypt. The nile god, the frogs, flies. It seems as though the Hebrew Slave God was at war with the Egyptian gods. Showing battle by battle who was boss. You would think that once the livestock all died, that pharoh may have moved on from his economic reasoning to letting the slaves go as a write off for a really bad year. Regardless, creative tax solutions were not a voice he was listening to. And as a result Pharoh found himself in a watery grave to have his character attacked for thousands of years. Is there a lesson here? I think there is… DON’T MESS WITH THE LORD… even if you’re being true to yourself.
For those of us with faith I think there is something more that we can see here. Like everyone, we can be inspired by those who listen to their inner voice, we can even learn our lessons from those who don’t. But those of us with faith in Jesus have a job that’s not very easy, and isn’t very natural. We are asked to scrutinize both the outer world, and our inner world, against our relationship with God.
If you know Jesus, you know what he’s done for you, you know what has happened to you to let you meet him, and you know that you will do anything for him. Why? Because you know what love is. We sometimes forget, but are easily reminded. The Holy Spirit in your life is is someone that long you for to comfort you, to allow insight to come to you and to give you that extra super YOU when you need it. If you know Jesus you know why grace is important to you and you are authentic in your expression of love. You try your hardest to be who God wants you to be. You make yourself available to love others, and you long for the day that you will see clearly.
I say that to say this. Our Outer world is always pushing us wherever it wants us to go. Whether it is using us as an economic ladder, challenging us not rock the boat, or some other great corporate need. Our inner world longs to have itself match with the outerworld, but when the Outer world is in conflict, our innervoice begins to scream in guilt, fury, anger, injustice. And it is then that our inner world declares its independence. We declare our freedom from the outer world, and we challege it to revolution! IT MUST change its ways OR ELSE! When that Liberty is spoken in this way, worlds are changed. In the case of George Michael, he says Freedom in the 90’s. In the case of Chappelle, he says “SHUT IT DOWN!!!” With Pharoh, he says “I will NOT let your people go!”
Regardless of what our inner voice is screaming against our outer world, those of us with faith have to consider something more. Our world may be selling us as a slave. Our world may be forcing us to begin waving our flags and singing Le Misarables. “do You hear the people sing singing the song of angry men it is a music of a people who will not be slaves again…“ Our outer world may be FORCING us to declare our independence from it. But if you want to know what true freedom is, you must look to your faith. Because your faith assesses your outerworld and your faith scrutenizes your inner world with one question. That question is detestable to our inner voice. Because it doesn’t seem like freedom at all, yet it is the definition of Christian Liberty. What is that one question? “How can I please him?”
Your faith’s Freedom is living a step above the world and a step above your anger of it. Freedom in Christ is not following the Ten Commandments. That is staying out of jail… (Which is probably another kind of freedom.) But Freedom in Christ is something that is above it all. Liberty in Jesus is not a rule to live by, but a principle that is fueled by your love of what He’s done for you. The principle is to please Him. My conduct as a lover, believer, and follower of Jesus Christ is to please him. Not to please you, me or any organization, but only to please Him. That is the liberty we have in our Lord. And it is what Paul means when he says ‘Stand fast in the liberty where Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with bondage.’
Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone or anything put a harness of slavery on you; whether that is someone else, your job, yourself, or circomstance. As a lover of Christ your freedom lies within an active pursuit of the question “How can I please you?” That puts to death your fear of anything but God.
We may say we want freedom. We may say we even have it. Someone may say that ‘I have the freedom to do whatever I want.’ I think the problem there, is the reason why we end up needing Jesus so badly-- we are so consumed by our inner voice that we act in counter-dependance to it – whatever the outerworld is doing we NEED to do the opposite. Which means the outer world is still is directing us and we have silenced the true liberty and option of pleasing God. If you call yourself a Christian, YOU are free from YOU. You have forfeited your life for His life. I can say His life is what it’s about. His life is worth persuing; His life allows you to truly live. It is only through love that you can ask “how can I please you Lord?” and it is only by actively persuing the answer that we will truly gain our freedom in ‘08.
