And yet, and yet…

The girls in my family (like most US families) really liked musicals. As an avowed disinterested musical dad, it is my burden to have to listen to songs from those musicals on repeat in the car. Sometimes love is pain.

The other day we were listening to one of the songs from Wicked which has the line “Everyone has the right to fly.” Usually that kind of stuff just kind of washes together with the other lyrics, but on this listening it gave me pause.

Is it true? Does everyone have the right to fly? What does that mean?

I often question colloquial sayings and aphorisms, so when I heard this one I started seeking definition. It seems to me that the intended meaning is that everyone has the right to succeed and grow, which I definitely agree with. But when people in our generation hear that, is that what they really think?

Watching my kids watching media, I think the phrase has a different meaning when they hear it. Show after show, song after song, holds as the highest virtue an onstage performance. The terms of success are having the spotlight upon you, people cheering for you, even if the song you’re singing is essentially meaningless.

And so when we talk about the right to fly, I think about the ridiculous pressure that puts upon people. In the history of the world, there are remarkably few who have stood upon a stage and sung words of beauty and art from their hearts. We’ve separated the art and beauty from the gluttony and compulsion of “look at me.” We have an obsession with being seen, while producing shadows to hide who we really are.

What if one of the sources of our generation’s tremendously high rate of mental illness is the constantly warring pressure of getting onto a platform, the disappointment of struggle to be seen, and the insane pressure to perform excellently when you are seen? When forces press against, cracks appear.

As we continue to produce and pursue beauty, we need to take note of the persistence of beauty in the world even in the hidden places. I’ve written on this before in an earlier post, but some of the most beautiful places in God’s creation will be seen by extremely few, and some that humans will never see. And yet, and yet whether seen or not, those places still shine with the beauty of the Creator.

Whether seen or not, you shine with the beauty of the Creator. You may not wind up finding the spotlight, but are you leaning into your God-given talents and abilities to do good work? Are you loving people from the grace Christ has placed in your heart? Is it possible to fly without a crowd watching?

Maybe beauty was never designed to be defined by the eye of the beholder.

God has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end. -Ecclesiastes 3:11