equivalents.

in the process of catching up on posting all of the pics & videos i had taken from concerts in the fall, i came across a song i had recorded when Sufjan Stevens played in Denver this past November. it's a song i hadn't been all that familiar with before, but after all the introspection it's caused, i know it by heart.

the song is called "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." & it tells the story of the serial killer by the same name from Illinois. his crimes were altogether horrifying & disgusting. it literally makes me feel sick to think about it, & of course, being me, i had to research the entire story. enough said. wikipedia it if you wish. ...but my point in writing this is not to ramble about what a sick murderer he was; the effects are far more personal.


in the last verse of the song, Sufjan's whispering melody is haunting: "in my best behavior, i am really just like him. look beneath the floorboards for the secrets i have hid."
his words coincide with the argument that sin is sin, & no one is any better than anyone else.

"For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it." - James 2:10

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, & with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, & then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." - Matthew 7:1-5

i started to think about which part of what Gacy did made his crimes so atrocious, & i came to the conclusion that what most disgusts us about his crimes is something that we are just as guilty, if not more guilty, of doing to ourselves. Gacy murdered & raped young boys, robbing them of their innocence & their lives.. but we voluntarily rob ourselves of innocence; i even find myself detesting my own purity at times, & the 'innocence' i maintain is only by grace. i don't mean to downplay the lives of the boys that were killed, but i think that we could serve to take a deeper look at how we are cutting our own lives short by indulging anything & everything to waste them away. we are just as much children of God as these boys were children.

i think this was just something i needed to recognize for myself - a reality check, if you will, of my need for grace as well as his. i'm glad Sufjan wrote this song, & i guess that's all i have to say...