The Gospel According To Taylor Swift

Day 136 (Written Thursday April 26) ~ In the interest of full disclosure it needs to be said that I am not a Taylor Swift fan. I have been to a Taylor Swift concert (your welcome Reese and Anna Harper) and I’m still not a fan. I understand why teenage girls adore her, but I am not a teenage girl. I do not consider her to be country, but pop with a little fiddle and banjo thrown in to make it down home. I do respect her for writing her own songs, bearing her heart and, as Mark Twain suggested, “write what you know.” I also appreciate that to date she appears to be modest and isn’t trampy. She’s somewhat the anti-Britney Spears. I do, however, love her song “Mean.” I mean it, I actually like that song a lot. And I applaud her for handling her critics in a way that allows her to express the hurt she no doubt feels at the awful things said about her, while at the same time not stooping to their level with personal attacks, and making tons of money off of it to boot. Well played Taylor Swift. Well played. Here’s why I like the song: it calls attention to, and aptly describes the hurt that words can inflict upon people, while appropriately rebuking the ones casting the verbal stones. The old nursery rhyme “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is a big ole lie. The wounds I have received from sticks and stones have always healed but the words I’ve been hit with don’t ever fully go away. The saddest part is that Taylor Swift’s message could describe a lot of “good Christian folks” who know better and are called to a higher standard. Did you know 13 times in the New Testament Christians are told to “love one another” (John 13:34; 15:12,17; Romans 13:8; 1 Thessalonians 4:9; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:7, 11-12; 2 John 1:5). The next time you think about saying mean or hurtful things about someone, especially a fellow Christian, ask yourself, “Why do I want to say something like this?” If that doesn’t stop you, read Matthew 5:22. If that doesn’t stop you, I guess nothing will. But maybe your toes will get stepped on every time you hear Taylor Swift sing, “You with your words like knives and swords and weapons that you use against me. You have knocked me off my feet again, got me feeling like I’m nothing. You, with your voice like nails on a chalkboard, calling me out when I’m wounded. You, picking on the weaker man....You, with your switching sides and your walk by lies and your humiliation. You, have pointed out my flaws again as if I don’t already see them. I’ll walk with my head down trying to block you out ‘cause I’ll never impress you, I just wanna feel ok again. Well, you can take me down with just one single blow but you don’t know what you don’t know. Someday I’ll be living in a big old city and all you’re ever gonna be is mean. Why you wanna be so mean?” Taylor Swift, I may not be a fan, but I will say Amen!