I purposely decided to watch the Oscars on Sunday night, as I had not done in years, and was excitedly surprised to find Seth MacFarlane hosting.  Knowing Seth’s tendency toward irreverence did give me pause as to how he might be received.  But that was it, my concern wasn’t whether he would do the event justice – which he did, brilliantly, in so many ways – but whether we as a society are ready for the poking of our human foibles Seth does so impeccably.

In my mind, unlike all things Divine, our humanity deserves less of the reverence we give it and more of a reality check and appreciation.  We would do well to let go the expectation of human perfection.  In fact, and I may have written of this somewhere before, our pursuit of political correctness, though I am sure well intended, has actually caused detriment to our society in that rather than be challenged to learn how to discuss and work through our differences of perspective effectively, it drove our differences underground where they have been left to being acted out in ridiculous and too often dangerous ways.

It is a farce to think we as humans must act in a God-like manner to be appreciated.  Godliness is an ideal to which I am a huge advocate of pursuing, and like God, it is, in our human form, infinitely distant to our understanding.  Religion, to whichever one subscribes, serves to guide our practice to affect Divinity in our lives, a practice that remains ongoing.

So, what Seth so divinely provides us in his brilliant authentic way is the poking of our humanity that we might see it more clearly and learn to appreciate it in its own right; to replace our reverence for appreciation, because, in my mind, our reverence for our humanity has led us to profound judgment of one another and requisite non-purposeful suffering.

I read many a suffering comment of Seth’s performance.  As one colleague shared with me, “It wasn’t my cup of tea.” And that should be it.  He doesn’t have to be your cup of tea, but that is all. It truly amazed me how many people thought that the reactions of Naomi, Charlize and Jennifer to “I Saw Your Boobs” were actually in real time.  Just goes to show how many of us remain out to judge others, however unwittingly, with little regard for our own filters.

The thing to remember is that our reactions say infinitely more about us than anything or anyone to which we react.  This leads me to believe that we, as a society, have a great deal of reflection to do on our own humanity and divinity.

Enough said,

~ Jacqueline