Sheer Audacity
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. – Romans 12:21 (NIV)
When Dolly Parton died, the earth quaked. The divided world momentarily scotch-taped itself together to grieve a unifying woman, one spared being overcome by evil. She came over evil with good.
She wore all her artifice so well that it became her. As in becoming. She was becoming. Leaving for Nashville the morning after graduating from high school, she left nothing behind but instead made home larger. When a reporter asked her why she left so abruptly at 18, she said, “I had a plan to be rich and famous. I wanted to be a star and had to get started.”
No false humility prevailed. She didn’t seem to know how to second-guess herself or say what she was supposed to say. When Whitney Houston sang her love song better than she did, she said so and invested the royalties in Whitney’s community.
What made Dolly good was direct kindness and an audacity of listening to both her own experience and that of others. This simultaneity is golden-ruler lined. When the Kyoto prize was offered to Carol Gilligan’s new book, The Audacity of Listening, the prize’s Japanese donors questioned the word audacity. “We don’t have that word in Japanese. It is insufficiently courteous.” They substituted two Japanese words: insubordinate and unhumbled.
Dolly reclaimed respect for so-called dumb blondes, southern accents, white trash, even Jolene, by refusing to be humbled by them. She kept pouring herself another cup of ambition. She was an insubordinate of the humbly unhumbled trickster vintage.
There’s another testament of good news to be learned from her. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Dolly.
Prayer
Holy One, thank you for making Dolly Dolly. Amen.
About the AuthorDonna Schaper is the Pastor of the Congregational Church of Austin (COA). Her book Rooted in Resurrection is a garden memoir and includes spiritual and horticultural advice in its meditations.