I have been thinking a lot lately about people in the entertainment industry or in the media who have gotten cancelled. There was Amanda Bynes, Kevin Sorbo, Mel Gibson, Roseanne Barr, Anthony Sabato Jr, Gina Carano, and many others who have gotten cancelled lately. As I am writing this, there are even some media darlings like Whoopi Goldberg and Joe Rogan who are getting cancelled.

It is frightening to me, especially as my own writing projects have recently seen some success in that industry. I think back on my own imperfect life and I know there are some bad things that I have done that someone will bring up if I am to be successful in this field of screenwriting. I have already had someone who emailed someone I was working with in the early days of this ezine to dissuade him from working with me. To the next person who wants to do such a thing, I have a lawyer standing by!

These possibilities make me question what my true values and goals are in life in general and in this field specifically. I think of The Man in the Moon, a film with Jim Carrey and Danny Devito. In this film, Danny Devito asks Andy Kaufman ,”Who are you trying to entertain?” Though Andy Kaufman does not really have an answer, the answer really is that Andy Kaufman never saw himself as an entertainer as much as he saw himself as an artist.

Similarly, I do not see myself as an entertainer but an artist with only one in the audience, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I do my art as a form of worship to Him. He knows the bad things I have done. He knows the failures I have made and will make, yet His love is still there for me. That is definitely something I want to sing of, if I could sing or paint or juggle about if I could paint or juggle (ok and yes, if I could sing).

If my, “art” was shelving books, working in a restaurant, or pumping gas, the point would be the same–I would want to do it in celebration of His love.

I am full of sin: both in the past and today, and I will fall again tomorrow. However, I would rather stand with God and be judged by the world than stand with the world and be judged by God!

So, to those who are going to try and cancel me in the future, YES I am not perfect. You do not have to dig deep to see the mistakes I have made. But God loves me and has a path for me, maybe not to Hollywood glory but to His.

Psalm 1:1-6 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; …

———————————————————————————–W.