So Anna Nicole Smith has died – it’s all over the news. And two things have really stood out in the commentators’ discussions of this unexpected death. One is that Ms. Smith has been referred to as the founder of “trainwreck TV” – I gather she was on some kind of TV show where she humiliated herself. The other is that several announcers have used variations of “we’re sending our thoughts and prayers to her family.”
How do you send thoughts? How does the recipient know when they arrive? If you’re busy when the thought arrives, is there a way to detain it for later review?
Last month, I write this in “Sending Good Thoughts” –
I’ve done several posts on prayer lately. People are starved for it, to the point that even non-Christians have developed a secular alternative: “sending good thoughts.” A friend of mine and I joke about developing a thought receiver to catch these thoughts as they come in. We joke about it, but we are appreciative of the fact that, as in Psalm 19:1 – the heavens declare the glory of God – even people who have not accepted the Lord still can’t help mimicking parts of Christianity because at some level, they know it’s right. We are hard-wired to seek the supernatural – we inherently need to be part of “something bigger” – and we need to worship. We all do these things, it’s just that some of us aren’t directing these activities toward God.
The death of a public person tends to remind us of our own mortality, particularly a woman as young-looking as Anna Nicole Smith. Now is an opportunity to consider how people will speak of us after we’re gone. Will we be remembered for our “trainwreck TV” moments? Will those who knew us have more to offer than “good thoughts?” The choice is up to us.
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