A Free Word on Freefalls

Messengers who announce the end don’t typically ask for paychecks. They come freely offering either a promise of swift judgment, or perhaps one last chance to avoid disaster.  

While in the ancient world and literature that was the job of prophets, seers, and divine miracles that we are now much too evolved and sophisticated to stop and ponder seriously, we are nonetheless, still being given a free warning. While Westeros has the Starks proclaiming “Winter is coming,” in 21^st century America we have other messengers that come, freely, to warn us. It’s not Wolf Blitzer or Sean Hannity. Not Bernie Sanders or Paul Ryan. You won’t find it on CSPAN, MSNBC, CBS, or FOX News this week. Recently, the messenger was none other than that classic reality program of the summer – America’s Got Talent.

Seriously? The hour long talent show? Yup. Whether you watch the show or not (it’s a fan favorite at our house), this week’s episode of America’s Got Talent was a double feature – where else can you watch singing clowns, trapeze artists, and 10-year olds pull off a clever Footloose tribute while also getting a free word on freefalls?

But first – a word on entertainment. I think we can all agree that entertainment (movies, TV shows, art, dance, comedy, music, etc.) has an interesting and undeniable connection with our culture and world at large. While we can’t talk about all that now, I propose that entertainment has at least two essential roles: 1. it helps us see our world through a different lens and thereby understand it better and 2. it provides, at times, a healthy escape from the hard truths we as a nation are grappling with. Entertainment helps us understand our world by showing it to us from a different angle (acting like a mirror) and provides a brief escape from our world by taking us to another (acting like a window).

So then, if entertainment is designed to help us understand our world or at least, escape it momentarily, what can we learn from the first live episode of America’s Got Talent this week?

We’ll start with the sad clown – that always seems appropriate doesn’t it?

If you haven’t watched this season, perhaps one of the biggest surprises was an older gentleman dressed as a sad clown named Puddles. After a mimed introduction (because Puddles is also a mime), the clown belts chart topping hits to thunderous applause. While it may seem strange at first, I think the clown is trying to teach us something: that our way of doing things is coming to an end.

Don’t believe me? I get it. I’ve got a lot of convincing to do when I’m advocating that a talent variety show is a messenger of the end. Puddles is a sad clown, undeniably morose and a bit like the guy you want to avoid at a dinner party. If Puddles were an animal he would be Eeyore. But when he sings hit songs like Chandelier or Royals the magic begins. The prophet begins to speak. Because behind the hype of the music and the impressive vocals there is still a sad clown. No matter how he well he hums his tune or perfect his pitch, behind all the hype, the party, the drinking, the consumption, lies a profound sadness. The sadness of a way of life that cannot possibly continue indefinitely. So while others sing of revelry without consequence, Puddles shows us our culture from a different angle. An angle that reveals that the party can’t continue for much longer.

But this week, Puddles offered yet another message about our current predicament. While he certainly fulfills entertainment’s first goal of helping us understand our world, the sad clown gave us a second warning. After performing, Puddles broke down under scrutiny and pressure. The awkward, uncomfortable, and guttural response of the now silent clown to critique was a brief warning of the end.

In Puddles case, it was a message that not even the glamour and glory of a huge stage can be an escape from profound pain and disappointment. For a moment the sad clown showed us not just the pain of the death of his dream, but also the pain that comes with the death of the culture and way of life he was critiquing. At the end of every party song, new or old, there is always a morning after. There is a payment to be made, a cost to count, and often, a new scar to reckon with. Not even a sad clown with a stunning voice and clever act, can keep that message buried. In short, Puddles, through his act and his response to criticism, has shown us the awkward yet inescapable truth that the end is near – this way of life cannot be sustained. More on that later.

Then there’s the Singing Donald Trump. A contestant who immediately earned the ire of some, the loyalty of others, and the skepticism, I would imagine, of most. But his act was to some degree funny and entertaining. Until of course, this week. It wasn’t the mediocre vocals or the funky, gimmicky dance routines; as with the sad clown, it was an inadvertent message.

After receiving remarks from the judges, the man behind the Trump spoke. In a message that was meant to be an explanation of the act more than a part of the act itself, he said he wanted to unite our country and bring people together. Immediate tension followed. One judge put her head on the table in disgust while the crowd grew nervously quiet. Howie Mandel made a joke that fell flat; and for the  second time in an hour we had a troubling message.

Did the Singing Trump provide a different way to view our world – I don’t think so and I don’t think he’s trying to. I think he just wants to make us laugh and forget our problems for a minute. So did the Singing Trump successfully provide an escape from harsh reality for a moment? No. After a week filled with partisan screaming, presidential blunders, and unashamed and frankly nauseating racism by some, our outlet of escape failed us. The Singing Trump made us chuckle and laugh but when the time came, the man behind the act (trying, I think, genuinely to communicate his desire to make people laugh and feel closer) only drove the wedge further in.

So what’s the big deal? If entertainment is designed to help us understand our culture better and provide us with a momentary escape and chance to cope with difficult realities around us, then these inadvertent, awkward moments of reality television actually say a lot.

A Culture in Freefall

These performances help us see the end on the horizon. Not the end of life in America or some post-apocalyptic, dystopian world emerging. But the end of this particular ride. The ride of unbridled American consumption that leaves us filling our stomachs and homes and spending massive amounts of wealth on ourselves while much of the rest of the world labors to provide us with more and starves in the process. The end of the myth that a life without morals, without scruples and discipline, is the good life. The end of the lie that we can live however we want without having to pay the bill at the end of the day.

The end of pretending that our choices, even the smallest ones, do not have massive consequences.

Puddles shows this best in his act. That’s the genius of his act. A sad clown singing popular club songs. Why? Because after the lyrics end, the party fades. The sun rises and there’s not a whole lot left but retching on the bathroom floor. That’s the end of the song. That’s the 12 hours after Chandelier stops playing. The party is over – now we must face what comes next, and it isn’t the stuff of pop music.

Taking off the Mask

Perhaps more interestingly though, the Singing Trump and Puddles have shown us that the time has come to take off our masks.

Masquerade parties were once the thing to do. Everyone would come to a gala and dance, eat, and drink as they pleased, all with their identity camouflaged with a simple mask. No matter how grand the party, how sweet the wine or how sensual the dancing, the hour always came when the masks came off. As the clock struck midnight, it was time to reveal your true identity, to show those you had cavorted and flirted with who you really were.

The awkward reactions of both Puddles and the Singing Trump were moments when the entertainment sector took its mask off. For a brief few seconds neither performer could fulfill their entertainment duty – to help us escape. The desperate murmurs of Puddles and the divisive comments of the Singing Trump revealed something I think we all know intuitively – there is no escaping this. No amount of entertainment can blunt the reality of our world. It is a fundamental goal of entertainment to provide us with some measure of healthy coping by escape. But in these moments, the entertainers and the viewers both came to realize, there is no escaping this. There is no laughing it away or pretending it doesn’t exist for more than a few moments; this is a culture in freefall.

Think I’m crazy? Again, I get it. But turn to many other forms of entertainment and you’ll see the same issues. The Vice President is cajoled at a Broadway show. Tina Fey mocks and mourns the carnage in Charlottesville on Saturday Night Live. Awards ceremonies, be it the Espies or the Oscars, are filled with awkward moments of political protest. And all of it points to where we are now – 30,000 feet in the air and running on fumes.

Hope in a Freefall

With the ground approaching rapidly a wise question to ask perhaps is, can you have hope in a freefall? It’s a complicated question with a complicated answer: yes and probably not.

Yes, as an individual you can have hope. As our culture is shaken and rocked, we can survive as individuals. We can live differently if we belong to another country. We can survive a freefall because Jesus saw it through to the shattering end for us. We can escape precisely because He chose not to. We can survive a national calamity culturally as individuals because ultimately, we are citizens that live differently. Why? Because we belong to another kingdom:

“By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. By faith he went to live in the land of promise…for he was looking forward to the city that has eternal foundations, whose designer and builder is God…let us be grateful for receiving a heavenly kingdom that cannot be shaken, and let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire, (Heb. 11;9-11,12:28-29).”

So can you and I survive a national disaster? Yes. As individuals we certainly can. But only if we aren’t first and foremost citizens of that nation. We must be citizens of another kingdom, a heavenly city, that cannot be shaken. And we must live like the King of that world requires us. Obeying not out of fear, but out of respect, love, and awe. You and I can survive America’s collapse precisely because as believers, we are not first and foremost American. We are citizens of an eternal kingdom, adopted into His family by faith in His Son Jesus.

On the other hand, is there hope in a freefall? Probably not. Not for nations that is. Biblically this is called national solidarity – the idea that God rules and judges not just individuals but also nations for both the good and bad they do. Amos, Obadiah, Nahum, Hosea, Jonah, and Habakkuk all rebuked and condemned not just individuals but entire nations. They warned nations of coming calamity for their evil behavior. While nations don’t have immortal souls (but individuals certainly do), we are nonetheless accountable to God. In a week when two western countries celebrated the eradication of Down’s Syndrome through targeted abortion campaigns (a more fitting description would probably be eugenics in action) and our own country seems unwilling to shut up and listen to someone who is different from ourselves and our own camp, the idea of national solidarity and judgment before God as an entire people is disquieting.

Even if you reject the biblical basis for national divine judgment for large scale evil and sin, history tells the same story. The Greeks, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, and European colonizers would all warn us that, as a nation, your chickens do come home to roost. The freefall can’t last forever, there really is ground approaching and the landing will not be smooth.

Can our current predicament be changed? Can we pull out of the nosedive? Certainly, by the grace of God, as both individuals and as a country, we can avoid disaster. I sincerely hope we will. But that requires a humility, grace, faith, and forgiveness I think we are, at least in national terms, not likely to embrace. Can the crash be averted? Absolutely. Will it be averted? I claim no hidden knowledge, but according to the prophets in entertainment this past week, the answer seems to be, probably not.