In October 1992, I was 16 years old, out of high school a year early, living with my parents, working in their pizza shop, and playing in a couple of bands. Life for me in those days was fraught. I was a little aimless, low on self-esteem, feeling trapped in a microscopic Maine town with my tremendous talent and potential and ideas, and that tension between the desire to share that talent and the desire to hide it.
In those days, when I didn't have a gig on a Saturday night, I would stay up to watch Saturday Night Live. Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Victoria Jackson, that whole crew. (I'm a Gen-Xer through and through.)
I cannot at all claim to have been a fan of Sinéad O'Connor's music. I recognized her undeniable talent and her beauty, but I never owned any of her albums, though I did love her voice whenever I heard it - the raw, unabashed quality - and like most of the rest of the world I loved her rendition of Prince's 'Nothing Compares 2 U'.
So there I was, some Saturday night, sitting alone on that run down, awful chair of mine in the corner of the TV room, staring at the old CRT, watching SNL. Here comes Sinéad for her second song, which was a Bob Marley cover. That's cool. And then at the end of the song, she looked straight into the camera - straight into the eyes of the world - and held up that photo of Pope John Paul II and tore it to shreds.
My self-absorbed world stopped spinning.
I will never forget how that moment electrified my 16 year old body. The initial shock, and then the devastating pleasure of it. The seed it planted in my mind about the possibility of shedding beliefs that no longer serve me. The willingness to sacrifice everything in service of the bravery required to speak truth to power, and to do so in such a public way.
I've thought of that moment so many times over the last 30 years, and it always leads me back to the same questions:
Have I done anything as important and as meaningful as that?
Would I risk it all, just as she did - and be willing to lose so much in the process, just as she did - to do something in support of my deepest core values?
Thanks in part to her and to her fearless example, I'm still asking myself those questions, exploring the answers, trying to keep my core values in view and live by their lights.
Rest in peace, Sinéad, and thank you.
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