Sorry, Charlie

Conversion of St. Augustine, Fra Angelico

I've been thinking about Charlie Sheen lately. I guess I'm not alone, because every time I get on the internet I see his manic eyes and increasingly drawn face looking back at me. Why the media obsession would be a mystery to me if I wasn't already cynical about the state of journalism today, as well as the general cultural decline we have suffered. There is a pan-national revolution going on from Tunis to the Arabian Peninsula, the U.S. economy is a mess, as far as I can tell there's still a war going on in Afghanistan and the political climate in our country gets more polarized by the day. But all the news sites want to talk about is the a self destructive sit-com actor. I guess the media saw it was time to shift our attention from the parade of disintegrating starlets we've had the last few years. It was high time a middle aged man came along to prove he could live as recklessly as a 21 year old trust fund baby.

But I come to lament Charlie, not mock him. I do feel bad that I made a wise crack at his expense in these pages a few months back, but that was when he appeared to be acting like an idiot rather than mentally ill and demonically oppressed. I caught an interview he gave on Good Morning America this week, and it was sad. It's the classic case of what happens when a person becomes totally enslaved to sensual pleasures. All sense of balance and proportion are lost, the ego explodes as one's mental and physical health implodes. His is an extreme case, to be sure, to the point that he isn't even trying to hide any thing or pretend to have noble purposes. It's drugs for the sake of drugs and sex for the sake of sex and having women around because they serve a function (he'll throw the words love and family around, as is so common today, but there is little doubt that his so called "goddesses" are no more than interchangeable parts. In the end, that's all he is for them).

Now I read this morning that his lawyer is worried for his mental health, fearing he may harm himself. It's little late for that, no? I'm not trying to make Sheen out to be a victim; he's a big boy and needs to take responsibility for himself. But this behavior isn't new, and as long as his show made the top ten, the ad revenue was coming in, he showed up for work on time, read his lines and hit his marks no one cared how he was destroying himself and his real family.

As for the show itself, which I've watched a total of three times over the years, Sheen pretty much plays himself; a smooth talking playboy with a drinking problem. Oh so naughty, but in a cute way. In it's sanitized TV form it looks pretty good, but it proves pretty pathetic when attempted in real life, especially when you don't have a writer supplying your dialogue.

Sheen needs rehab, counseling, a swift kick in the keister, to be sure. But more than any of these he needs conversion of life. His heart is totally set on fleshly things, and until he sees the effects of his actions on himself and others he will never change. Until he understands that the road of excess doesn't lead to the palace of wisdom, but to an untimely and possibly eternal grave he will continue his death spiral.

Conversion is the key word for any of us as we begin Lent. Most people are not as far gone as Charlie Sheen, but living in a materialist, consumerist culture as we do it's hard not to become enslaved somewhat to the sensual world. It makes us a little selfish, a little self centered, a little less prepared to love others unconditionally. We should be different people at the end of these forty days then we were at the beginning. Often times we look at the sacrifices we make in isolation, without seeing the bigger picture. We may give up some food or drink we enjoy, maybe we give up Facebook or limit our computer time to things work or school related or abstain from TV, but if we see Easter only as the day we can go back to our old habits, we miss the point. We may have done penance for our past sins, but we have not undergone a conversion of heart that the season demands. If we take Easter as the time to pick up our old habits again we very well may find ourselves picking up our old sins again as well, which only give us new opportunities to do penance.


Pray for Charlie Sheen, pray for his conversion. Also take note of how ugly slavery to sin is.