Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Kirk Franklin on Oprah

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I watched Oprah today with Kirk Franklin talking about recovery from a pornography addiction and became more confused than anything else.
 
His addiction began at the young age of 8 and he has been recovering for the past 8 or 9 years.  I do not immediately know his age, but he has been addicted over half his life, so I thank God for his continued recovery and ongoing, conscious struggle.
 
The ironic part to me is that he stated that his porn addiction was more of a hardcopy addiction without any use of the internet.  His addiction mostly consisted of magazines and adult movies versus websites, webcams, erotic e-mails, and other audio, visual, and textual porn.
 
Why this fact confuses me I do not quite know, but given the age and year that he was first introduced to pornography, it makes sense.
 
The world wide web is a little over 10 years old and VCRs gained popularity in the late 80s while magazines have been around forever it seems.  So how he avoided being addicted to anything online is more amazing than anything else (if he was addicted 10 years ago).
 
But Kirk's frankness, unbridled honesty, and love and appreciation for his wife Tammy did not tarnish his star in my eyes.
 
My main concern before the show was that it would be a case of "there is no such thing as bad or negative publicity" and his integrity kept the show from appearing this way altogether.
 
I do remember seeing his wife in the audience several weeks ago and today Oprah played a brief segment where Kirk was in the audience and I do not know or remember if it was the same episode.  I never saw him in the audience.  But I believe that the episode where his wife was in the audience was about either Tyler Perry's movie "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" or men being on the down low.
 
What this has to do with anything would be more confusing but it is only what I think that I saw.
 
At times, I am very skeptical of Oprah's audience of mostly women than anything else.  I do not believe that Oprah plays towards her audience and that they simply follow who and what they think she is.
 
But today I knew that while the audience readily clapped for the strength of Tammy (Kirk's wife), there was another segment of women there that would quickly swim around their boat like hungry sharks and tell Kirk "come on over to Big Mama and let me help you off that wagon" and drown Kirk within their cleavage;)
 
Still I expect a boost to Kirk's CD sales and concert attendance as a result of today's episode.
 
I believe that there will be many who will flock to see him fall or try to tempt him now that his public confession has been made.
 
Kirk, do not let them kick you while they believe you are down!!!  Just know that just by being on O versus anything other statements, confessions, and/or admittance on the subject, a bigger bulls eye has been drawn on you.
 
As a result, you are now in the league of athletes of the various professional leagues and entertainers if you were not already before.  Increase the size of your entourage and bodyguards because there is somebody who will want to use today's episode as a "you heard it first on Oprah", so this new news is not that difficult to believe.
 
I will personally pray for Kirk and any other man or woman who is or has been entrapped by pornography. 
 
Clearly, the mental and spiritual residue of porn is like the smoke within one's clothes and body from a nightclub or smoke-filled room and I hope to write a new song about the topic after seeing today's episode.
 
Peace!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The scary part, Bro. Roney, is that when Kirk stated that he "prayed his way out", Oprah turned to the therapist and stated, "but you really can't pray your way out of this, can you?"

sharnelle J.

NeenaLove said...

your writing is soooo smoothe and melodic... i am enthralled.

pornography is an ugly thing... yet i catch myself wanting to watch it from time to time. **sigh**

trise7en said...

Yeah I peeped that Roney, wow, so open. Neena you are an honest woman.

Roney Smith said...

I basically missed the expert's words and anything after Kirk was on stage beside Oprah due to my girls' excitement after returning home with my wife Wyteria.

Neenalove, thank you for your compliment and remember that there is more available than what meets the eyes.

This is the tragic omission and lie that pornography can never really fulfill.

Porn keeps making empty promises as well as any other temptation but if and/or when we succumb to them, this is where the shame comes from.

Shame comes from asking ourselves "how did I fall for that?", "why did I do it again?", or "what made it appear so real?".

Denying the lie in advance is indeed difficult but not impossible. The only way to raise our consciousness of what happens within the progress.

This is where I believe that faith in God can indeed make the difference. Prevention is definitely cheaper than the cure although Christ has both;)

Peace!

Roney Smith said...

Thanks Shavar for your comment!

I am excited about subscribing to your podcast and your continuous work!

placuser said...

I too have some history like kirk and his addiction. I too am a chrisian, its a spiritual battle, the flesh and spirit against each other. Jesus said whoever sins is a slave of sin, but through us being born again and receiving Jesus into our hearts its his holy spirit taking over and giving us the power to overcome sin. Sometimes we fall into temptation like I have but his mercies are new everyday, noone loves like Jesus loves. The answer to these addictions is the gospel, we are all sinners needing of a savior, I recommend 1Cor.10:13