King is sailing, they say

I don’t follow current pop culture, and I don’t intend to anytime soon. If a movie or song came out after 1985 or so, it is generally off my radar screen. Having said that, Anna Nicole Smith died just the other day. I know nothing about this woman, except she cannot sing, act, dance… in fact I am not sure why she was famous. OK, actually I do know why she is famous. She lived a scandalous life, and I guess law abiding citizens enjoy living vicariously through such notoriety. Same goes for her younger sister, Paris Hilton. Stop me if I am wrong. I know only what I have read on the Tabloid headlines while in the supermarket checkout line, and I think her life goes something like this:She was raised dirt poor in rural Texas, married young and had a child. But he was very abusive, and she had the looks, so she ran away to the big city to be famous. She quickly wound up on Playboy’s cover and centerfold, and continued to promote herself as a stripper in some seedy dive. Somehow she wound up in a Leslie Neilson ‘Naked Gun’ movie (OJ SImpson’s last hurrah). At this point in her career, she was famous for only one thing. OK, actually better make that two things. A sleezy, octogenarian gazillionaire with a respirator and a huge bankroll in his pocket would visit her at the strip joint often, and buy her lavish jewelry. Soon after, they married - she for the promise of that huge bankroll, he to spend his last days with her famous assets. Then he died, and Anna’s life had been a legal nightmare ever since. It was all about the old man’s money. She wanted it, his surviving family wanted it, the lawyers on all sides wanted it, the tabloids wanted it, the enquiring minds wanted it.. money money money money. Well, a few years later she married her sleazy lawyer, who was clearly interested in her most famous assets and her newly acquired bankroll! He was present when her 20 year old son died under suspicious circumstances. He was NOT present when Anna gave birth to a baby (boy? girl? I don’t know), nor apparently was he present during the baby’s conception since the father has never been determined. Soon after that, Anna died, under suspicious circumstances, and with her sleazy husband present. She left behind an estranged family in rural Texas, a young baby, a legal mess concerning the still unclaimed giant bankroll, and probably, just a hunch here, but sadly no friends to speak of.What does this have to do with Christianity, you may ask? C’mon folks, spirituality can be found in nearly any story. It’s just how you look at it.  Of all the news headlines memorializing her passing, none seems more fitting than to quote a few lines out of one of my favorite OT books - Ecclesiastes. If you want to know what has meaning in life, I advise giving this short book a read. Traditionally ascribed to King Solomon (which personally I doubt), it takes the point of view of a wealthy ruler, with much power. He sets out to find meaning in his life and bares no expense. He begins the book with the nihilistic line, “Meaningless! Meaningless! … Everything is meaningless!” Anna Nicole Smith was a woman who tasted all of life’s pleasures searching for fulfillment (which I assume we are all looking for).