I’ll pick back up on the series “Jesus is Our Reality” next month. 

 

But I’ve just learned about Dolly Parton’s death, and I simply loved her, so I want to share my thoughts about a lady who truly was, to me, a “Smiling Icon” sharing God’s love in more ways than she realized. 

 

Please indulge and/or forgive me.  

 

On my webpage (smilingicon.com), I have a section called “Smiling Icon ConneXion Spotlight.” Here is a screen shot on it, and you can see it includes illustrious figures like our own Chuck Proudfit, as well as other individuals whose life example has shined God’s life brightly and shared good with so many beyond themselves.

 

Dolly deserves a bit of a spotlight herself, because her light will shine brightly long after she’s gone. She didn’t just build an amazing singing and performing career. 

 

In addition to talking about the plight of folks in the Marketplace in the song “9-5,” she:  

• Supported many charitable efforts, particularly in the area of literacy, primarily through her Dollywood Foundation.  

• Her literacy program, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which is a part of the Dollywood Foundation, was founded in honor of her father, who never learned to read or write. It mails one book per month to each enrolled child from the time of their birth until they enter kindergarten. Over 1600 local communities provide the Imagination Library to almost 850,000 children each month across the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, and the Republic of Ireland. 

• In February 2018, she donated her 100 millionth free book, a copy of Parton’s children’s picture book Coat of Many Colors, to the  Library of Congress  in Washington, D.C.[215] and was honored by the Library on account of the “charity sending out its 100 millionth book”. 

• The Dollywood Foundation, funded from Parton’s profits, has brought jobs and tax revenues to a previously depressed region.  

• Worked to raise money for other causes, including the American Red Cross.  

• Pledged $500,000 toward a proposed $90 million hospital and cancer center to be constructed in Sevierville  

• Partnered with Emmylou Harris, allowing use of their music in a PETA ad campaign that encouraged pet owners to keep their dogs indoors rather than chained outside.   

• Made efforts to preserve the bald eagle through the American Eagle Foundation‘s sanctuary at Dollywood earned her the Partnership Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  

• In response to the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires, Parton provided $1,000 a month for six months to over 900 families affected by the wildfires, culminating with $5,000 to each home in the final month due to increased fundraising, totaling $10,000 per family. 

•  Was a generous donor to Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Among her gifts was a contribution to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt Pediatric Cancer Program in honor of a friend, Naji Abumrad ,, and her niece, Hannah Dennison, who was successfully treated for leukemia as a child at the Children’s Hospital.  

• In the aftermath of 2024’s Hurricane Helene, donated $2 million to relief efforts, $1 million personally and another $1 million through her various businesses and the Dollywood Foundation.

(SOURCE: Dolly Parton – Wikipedia_)

 

She was faith-driven and did what she could. Do I agree with everything she believed or stood for? No. But do I believe she did her best to live a life of giving? I think as she meets her Maker, there are a lot of things that will get a “Well done, good and faithful servant.” 

 

But here’s what I will remember her for from a spiritual perspective. I’m a bit of an artist, and an author, and someone who wants to create way more than I’ll be able to in this lifetime (but I imagine we’ll all be given uber chances to do so again). But for years I’ve had this vision about writing a musical titled “The Gospel According to Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, The Eagles, Dolly Parton and Others.”  

 

I just “hear” Jesus moments in so many of their songs, because more than we realize, our real longing and love is God, and many love songs are more about Him than we realize.  

 

So here is Dolly’s part in the musical. She’s Mary Magdalene. She’s in the Garden. She finally gets it that Jesus is no longer dead, but alive (Dolly did sing about that). And she sings these words from one of her famous songs (Here He Comes Again) to him, talking about him, and not some boyfriend who’s coming back to her life.

 

Here you come again

Here you come again
Looking better than a body has a right to
And shaking me up so that all I really know
Is here you come again, and here I go 

 

Jesus did come again. Looking better than any dead body had a right to! And we’re actually all going to be Smiling Icons in him. And because of him, all of us will one day “come again” IN Him. He is our Reality!