Death Notices Everyone (Not Just Olivia Newton-John)
"THIS JUST IN: Person dies. Family mourns. World barely notices. Also, coming up, is it time to rethink your 401(k)? More at 11"
In a media climate as unrelenting as ours is today, you’ve probably already forgot - or maybe were never even aware, or, more likely, couldn’t care less - that “Dame” Olivia Newton-John died.
Newton-John died at her ranch in Santa Ynez, California, on the morning of August 8, 2022. She was 73 years old.
You know Olivia Newton-John, right? Sandy from “Grease”?
No? Doesn’t ring a bell?
Before your time?
Not your wheelhouse?
It’s okay. Can’t say I blame you.
Truth be told, even if you were aware of her death, I’m guessing you’ve already moved on with your life.
While tragic for her family and friends, it’s not, in the grand scheme of things, of any actual historical significance. Same for the day of my death and yours.
But.
That’s not what today is about.
Today is about why it was even a headline in the first place.
Why the death of a once-was pop singer and actress is more newsworthy, than, say, the death of Lamont Dozier, songwriter for the Supremes and the Four Tops who helped write hits in the 1960s like “Baby Love” and “Heat Wave.”
Dozier died on the very same day.
I’m guessing you didn’t hear about it. And he was a “celebrity.”
How about John Willis Winters of Eustis, Florida, who also passed away August 8 at the age of 95?
No? Didn’t get that push notification?
Here’s a photo of John shared by his family.
He was a grandfather. He had a life. A legacy.
Unknown to most of the world. Beloved and mourned by a few.
Just one man who died on one date. Which just happened to be the same date on which an Australian singer died.
Nor did you likely hear about 94-year-old Dorothy Jabon, of San Mateo, California. Dorothy died on August 8 as well.
Or about the untimely passing of Amanda Marie Amundson of Humbird, Wisconsin, who died at the age of 29 just 3 days before on Aug. 5.
Or about Jeffrey Wayne Chandler, 59. He died Aug. 6, 2022, at his home in Broadway, Virginia.
This list, as you know, is an interminable one. I could spend the next few weeks chronicling all those names who died on a single day.
But you get the point.
None of them received a breaking news push alert or a headline on CNN.com at the time of their passing.
Olivia Newton-John, on the other hand, did.
I can hear the groaning already.
“C’mon, dude, don’t be such a downer.”
“Why are you such an insensitive cisgender person of privilege,” etc.
It’s not that I have anything against ONJ. Grease, I will say, was an extremely watchable movie.
But when it comes to the media cult of death, only one rule applies: headlines for celebrities, numbers and anonymity for the non-celebrities.
The normies.
The borings.
The grandpas.
The John Winters of the world.
We recoil at hearing about their passing because, invariably, it reminds us of our own impending death.
Yet we’ll feign shock and sadness at hearing about ONJ because, y’know, she was, like, *so* good in Grease.
It’s bizarre. Borderline psychopathic.
Because both entities, us and them, are resigned to the same fate.
Both entities, as of this moment, are fully confronted with the truth of the eternal appointment we all have with the living God and his standard of righteousness that is found only in Jesus Christ.
Yet our media priests tell us to look here and not there. To mourn her and not him.
To exalt the death of others and ignore your own impending demise.
This may come as a shock to you, but you are not obligated, morally or otherwise, to worship and praise at the altar of death that is today’s MSM.
There is no law that you pay tribute to the personalities and overlords which are constantly thrust in our faces.
You do not have to bow the knee to Today’s Tragic Loss and give away honor that is due only to God.
The news itself - particularly TV news, but nowadays most media in general - is a cult of death, one which worships the pomp and ceremony of making all the world eyewitness to its own sentimentalized version of the Bataan march.
Unlike death itself, you have a choice not to participate.
You have a choice not to spectate the demise of others around you, particularly those people whom you’ve never known, met or seen any reason to think they held even the slightest thought towards you and your existence.
To paraphrase Jesus, “Let the dead report on the dead.”
Death, of course, is universal. I don’t intend to make light of the very real situation in which Mr. Winters or Mrs. ONJ find themselves, which is either really, really, really good, or really, really, really bad.
The question for you is: have you made provisions for that moment?
Are you ready for that journey?
Because that’s what it is.
It is a departure for which you are constantly on standby, waiting to hear whether a seat has opened up for you on the next train out.
The terminal is our life.
The ticket is our pulse.
The schedule is always changing.
But the chance of departure is 100 percent.
They say it’s the journey that matters.
But it’s the destination that lasts.
And once you leave, there’s no more opinion, no more guesswork, no more theories.
There are no more postgraduate level courses in which you pontificate on the virtues of best efforts and good works, hedging your bets that, even if there’s a God, He’s gotta be cool. Surely He’s not enraged all the time.
Unless He is (Psalm 7:11).
Put another way:
When was the last time you left for a journey and didn’t first prepare to leave?
So true and insightful. It is the destination that lasts. 🙏