Growing up the younger sister of a mentally disabled brother. My parents taught me that everyone has value, not by what they said, but what they did. My mother fought the county for programs on my brother, she actually worked in the system and learned how to get Gary exactly what he needed.

So the other day I blogged something about Katy Perry (I love that song "Waking Up in Vegas". I have never been to Vegas outside the airport. Never stepped foot on the strip. But someone mentioned that she grew up a preacher's kid and now she...well, she doesn't act like a preacher's kid.

This is exactly the kind of person I want to see find a real faith. When I watch Britney Spears go from boyfriend to boyfriend, looking for love -- when I watch her father take care of her for money, my heart just grieves. A parent doesn't get paid to take care of their child! No one is paying my parents to take care of my 46 year-old brother!

Now you may not think of Katy Perry or Britney Spears as underdogs, but there are so many people out there who are more emotionally fragile than the next guy (artistic bent perhaps?) and to watch them go from person to person, in a "Are you my Mother?" sort of way gets to my soul.

When I watched "Intervention" or "Obsessed" I see people with softer natures, who couldn't handle what life threw at them. And life throws some awful things at people. Drugs, alcohol, obsessions...they soothe that voice. Until they destroy them. I have seen people be very heartless towards these types, like "I would never drink!" "I would never fall into drugs."

Well, then you're equipped for that battle and you'll fight another one. But I really desire to know people's heart. I find when I write, I am terrible at physical descriptions. I don't notice if people change their hair or lose weight because that's just their shell. How's their heart doing?

Honestly, I am so glad for doctors like Daniel Amen, who are showing on brain scans that people with anxiety, their brains are lit up like a Christmas tree and can't utilize their rational minds all the time. When we attach motive or call something a weakness, it may not be the case. It may be the harsher part of their strength. Leo Tolstoy was a self-righteous jerk who gave away all his money and forced his wife to live like a pauper, then wouldn't let her anywhere near him on his death bed. But Anna Karenina is an 800 page book about one man's journey to Christ.

Michelangelo was a wealthy man, but he lived among rats and garbage because he was so cheap, he couldn't spend the money on himself to live decently. He was said to be a desperately unhappy man obsessed with anxiety over death/salvation issues.

Mozart was said to have a dependent personality and erratic, manic work schedules who could not handle money or the mundane issues of life.

People pay mightily for being different. I think it's less of a choice than they'd like.

Labels: Britney Spears, Daniel Amen, Katy Perry, Michelangelo, Tolstoy