So much to say, so little time

I’m rooting for Brangelina.

It goes without saying that relationships in Hollywood generally don’t last. Famous people, for some reason, seem to be pathologically incapable of long-term commitment—with the odd exception, of course.

I’m a super traditional kind of girl—the kind who got married for keeps, and who, by the grace of God, managed to find a guy who also got married for keeps. I don’t belittle the blessing, and I certainly don’t understate the importance of the values with which we were both raised. Like everyone else of my background, I get disgusted with the obnoxiousness of Hollywood hookups, breakups, and “marriages”—especially when actors and actresses start deliberately having kids together without getting married. Talk about setting children up for emotional damage.

And yet, there’s something about Brad and Angelina.

First, the disclaimer: It’s not about Brad. Mizzou claims him (even though he didn’t graduate); he’s a pretty boy extraordinaire, but I’m more a Hugh Jackman and Denzel Washington type, myself.

I think I started rooting for Angelina when I heard that she adopted a child from Cambodia. And then Ethiopia. And then of course, all the love triangle stuff started, and impossibly, improbably, and totally out of the cultural norm, Brad and Angelina created a family. A BIG family.

They’re not married, and I wish they were—but even so, look what they’ve created. Look at what they’ve done—refusing to be defined, puppet-stringed, or manipulated by the smut “journalism” industry, they deprived the paparazzi of the pictures (and associated money) that were inevitably going to follow the birth of their kids. And then they took the money and gave it away to someone who actually needed it.

Every week at the grocery store, some magazine claims it’s over—crowing about fights, rumored breakups, and so on. Triumphant, as if the tabloid-gobbling culture resents their success, and is determined to pull them down into the muck. And yet the more reputable sources indicate that everything remains just fine. How can you not root for that, in this day and age?

But most of all, I think I root for them because imperfect as they are as role models, they show themselves to be more down-to-earth than many Hollywood idols. They show themselves to have a real connection with what matters. They appear to have an innate understanding that it’s not enough to engage in political posturing and tossing out largess (however monstrous the amount) to the needy of the world—that they make a bigger difference by touching the face of Christ one on one, in the person of a child in need of a home.

Maybe I’m totally off base. But until someone convinces me otherwise, I’m in their corner.