Nick Bogardus

Lady Gaga has won two Grammies, two Guinness World Records, and has sold 15 million records and 51 million singles world-wide. More interestingly, she was named by Forbes as the #7 Most Powerful Woman in the world.

She recently offered some life and career advice in Cosmopolitan Magazine:

“Lady Gaga’s been enjoying herself since becoming famous. “I wanted to sleep with as many rock ‘n’ roll guys as I could, and I’ve certainly had my fun,” the singer says in the latest issue of Cosmo. Still, she’s career-oriented: “Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.” 

It’s All About You

One of the most successful, powerful women in the world is essentially telling her millions of teenage fans in Cosmo two things:

1. Use people to fulfill yourself: have loveless sex with people you care nothing for because they will more than likely care nothing for you.
2. Everything is about you: your dreams and your career are supreme over everything and anyone else. Commit and give yourself to nothing or no one outside of yourself or who doesn’t ultimately serve you.

Advice And Reality

Lady Gaga has a legion of fans she calls her “Little Monsters”. She makes videos for them proclaiming love for them and pledging to never forget them. Based on the statements above, that can’t be true. If her highest love is herself and her career, then she only loves those who support or advance her career, because that is what they do. They are loved because they serve her.

The sad truth is that Lady Gaga will wake up one day to find that her career, her fans, have told her that they don’t love her anymore. Every artist that creates disposable, imitative, inconsequential art will wake up to find that - the early episodes of VH1’s Behind the Music have numerous testimonies to that reality. If Lady Gaga doesn’t learn that lesson from history, she will face that cold morning alone.

Tragically, millions of people live in a way that reflects that advice. Our default mode as humans is to live for ourselves instead of others, to use people for our ends, to selfishly love people because they serve us, to be naively independent instead of maturely dependent, and to live as though the decisions we make today don’t effect tomorrow. While you might not have the spotlight that Lady Gaga commands for the moment - or the inevitable public crash - you can do what she hasn’t done and choose real, actual love.

“What is real, actual love”, you might ask.

I took this in an Urban Outfitters.

While many people might mouth the cliche that “Love is a verb”, they make make one fatal mistake: they make themselves the recipient of the action rather than being the one who is acting.  We love ourselves more than others.

Love is supposed to be entirely “other” in focus. I love my wife by caring for her, giving to her, sacrificing for her.  When I don’t demonstrate my love for her, I am loving other things, namely myself.  When I am loving myself, I am entirely selfish and self-centered. That is not love.  The kind of love that Lady Gaga proposes isn’t love at all. It is self-serving self-absorption.

The greatest example of love can be found in the Bible.  In nearly every instance when God’s love is mentioned, it is a demonstrative love.

 “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” (Deut. 7:7-8)

God’s love is shown in His choosing of a people who didn’t earn or deserve it, His promise keeping towards a people who didn’t keep theirs, and His redemption out of slavery of a people who couldn’t free themselves.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

God’s love is shown in His giving, sacrificing, of His Son for the benefit of those who believe in Jesus; they will be saved from perishing to eternal life. God’s love gives, sacrifices, and saves freely.

 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8)

Again, God shows His love most potently by giving His Son for the benefit of people who don’t deserve it and who can’t earn it, who are “still sinners”. 

This is a love that entirely opposite of, and foreign to, the kind of love espoused by Lady Gaga and lived out by many people. It is a love that looks outward rather than inward, and exists for the benefit of another rather than the self.  More direct to Gaga’s concern - and maybe yours as well - is that this kind of love doesn’t wake up one day to change its mind. It is love evidenced in keeping its promises and selflessness to the point of costly sacrifice.  It is permanent, unchanging, and relentless. That is real, actual love.

(Me, the pastor, and Eggie)

You go through phases as you live abroad.  When you first get there, all you can see are the differences.  First it’s just the obvious differences of language, lifestyles, and quality of life.  Then it’s the differences in cultures and customs, and slowly that starts to reveal thought processes and worldviews; the deeper stuff that underlies all of those bigger differences.  Around that time I think you begin to see the similarities between your home culture and new culture as well.  The differences aren’t so imposing and the similarities make it all welcoming.

One way you notice differences and similarities is by looking at how people do their jobs.  Every culture has teachers, politicians, policemen, grocery store clerks, doctors and so on.  Observing those shared professions help give you insight into the larger culture as well.

Then, sometimes, something happens and you’re reminded of just how different it is.

About a month ago one of the elders of the church here died.  It was a little sudden though not unexpected.  He had been at the church for a long time, it was like his second family, and from what I understand he was dearly loved by the congregation.

The pastor of our church is a great guy; hugely generous, caring, and passionate.  Part of the Monoglian/Buddhist tradition is that, when someone dies, everyone visits the family’s house to share food and mourn.  This happens for a period of days (if not longer).  So, as the pastor, he was at the family’s house to comfort and counsel.  In the midst of his own grief over the loss of his friend, he ministered to his friends’ family through that mourning period.

Then, not only did he have to officiate his friend’s funeral, but because he was his friend and pastor, he helped dig the grave.  How many pastors, or people in general for that matter, have dug their friend’s grave back home?  More so, in M*ngolia it gets so cold that the ground freezes completely solid.  It might as well be concrete.  So, in the below freezing, sub-Siberian winter, our pastor dug his friend’s grave with a jackhammer.

I’ve been fortunate to not have been around very much death in my life, but from what I’ve seen in America it is usually a pretty sterile thing.  Here is this man, this friend, this pastor sinking his hands into muck of life and death.  Who, in the midst of his own grief, comforts and consoles, and who not only braves temperatures you only see on Planet Earth to dig the hole in the ground for his friend’s body, but he does it with a jackhammer.  Then he climbs out, dusts himself off, and says goodbye to his friend by doing the funeral.

It’s the little differences that you see like that, that are humbling and inspiring; and for which I’m truly grateful to be here to see.

15 When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, Alas, my master! What shall we do? 16 He said, Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. 17 Then Elisha prayed and said, O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see. So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:15-17)

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15 And he said, Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the LORD to you, Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s.(2 Chronicles 20:15)

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in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? (Psalms 56:11)

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Do not be afraid of them,for I am with you to deliver you,declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 1:8)

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But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid. (Matthew 14:27)

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But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. (Luke 1:13)

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And Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men. (Luke 5:10b)

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9 And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, 10 for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people. 11 And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. (Acts 18:9-11)

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23 For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, 24 and he said, Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you. (Acts 27:23,24)

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The following night the Lord stood by him and said, Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome. (Acts 23:11)

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I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

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Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well. And instantly the woman was made well. (Matthew 9:22)

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And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven. (Matthew 9:2)

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