I Will Always Love You, Dolly 🦋
Yesterday, the world lost one of its brightest stars.
Dolly Parton died at the age of 80, and while there have been celebrity deaths that have saddened me over the years, this one has hit me particularly hard. I have cried a lot since hearing the news. It feels strange to grieve someone I never knew personally, but I suspect millions of people around the world are feeling much the same way.
Most people knew Dolly as a singer, songwriter, actress, and entertainer. She gave us “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “9 to 5,” and, of course, “I Will Always Love You.” She was one of the greatest songwriters country music ever produced, with an unmistakable voice, an unmistakable appearance, and that wonderful laugh that I think I will always hear whenever I picture her.
But Dolly Parton was so much more than an entertainer.
She founded the Imagination Library in 1995 because her father could not read or write. What began as an effort to provide books to children in her home county in Tennessee grew into an international program that has given hundreds of millions of books to children. She gave money to families who lost their homes in the devastating 2016 wildfires in East Tennessee. She supported hospitals, education, disaster relief, and countless other causes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University Medical Center helped fund research that contributed to the development of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
She didn’t just sing about making the world a better place. She put her money, her time, and her name behind actually doing it.
And now we know something that makes one of her final acts of generosity even more remarkable.
After Dolly’s death, it was revealed that she had been privately battling cancer. In January, to celebrate her 80th birthday, Dolly released a new version of “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” joined by Lainey Wilson, Miley Cyrus, Queen Latifah, and Reba McEntire. The proceeds were designated for pediatric cancer research at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
Dolly was fighting cancer herself, and she released a song to help children fighting cancer.
Someone writing about the song after her death put it perfectly: “Even while she was sick she was still thinking about others.”
That may be one of the best summaries of Dolly Parton I’ve heard.
Dolly promoted plenty of things during her long career. She was a brilliant entertainer and an equally brilliant businesswoman, and she certainly knew how to generate publicity. But some of the things that seemed to matter most to her—the things she did simply to help other people—were often done with surprisingly little fanfare.
Because the point wasn’t that Dolly Parton was helping.
The point was that someone needed help.
She didn’t announce that she was battling cancer when she released “Light of a Clear Blue Morning.” She didn’t make herself part of the story. She could easily have revealed her diagnosis and made the release about her own struggle with the disease. Instead, she directed the attention toward children with cancer and the doctors and researchers trying to save them.
Even at the end, when she had every reason to think about herself, Dolly was thinking about somebody else.
There is something almost unbearably beautiful about the song she chose, too. Dolly originally wrote “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” nearly fifty years ago as a song about emerging from darkness and believing that something brighter lies ahead. At 80 years old, while privately facing cancer, she returned to that message of hope—not to ask the world to hope for her, but to offer hope to others.
That was Dolly.
And for LGBTQ+ people, Dolly was something even more special.
Gay men have adored Dolly for generations. She knew it, joked about it, and embraced it. But underneath the rhinestones and jokes was something important: she embraced us.
Long before supporting LGBTQ+ people became commonplace among entertainers, Dolly made it clear that she wasn’t interested in judging people for whom they loved or who they were. After the horrific attack at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, she said something that, to me, sums up her attitude toward faith and other people better than almost anything else she ever said: “I am not God, I am no judge, I just know that God loves us all.”
Those are words a lot more Christians could stand to remember.
Dolly became one of our great heroes, one of our biggest divas, and one of the truest straight allies the LGBTQ+ community has ever had. I think part of the reason gay people loved her so fiercely was because Dolly understood something about being yourself in a world that constantly tells you how you’re supposed to be.
One of my favorite Dolly stories illustrates that perfectly. She used to tell about secretly entering a Dolly Parton look-alike contest at a gay club in Los Angeles. She exaggerated the Dolly look even further and entered alongside drag queens impersonating her.
And Dolly lost.
Nobody recognized that the real Dolly Parton was among them, and apparently the judges didn’t think Dolly made a particularly convincing Dolly. Instead of being offended, she thought the whole thing was hilarious. There is something wonderfully Dolly about losing a Dolly Parton look-alike contest to drag queens and turning it into one of your favorite stories to tell.
That sense of humor was such an important part of who she was. Dolly could laugh at herself endlessly, but I cannot remember ever hearing her publicly humiliate someone else for a laugh. She understood the difference between being funny and being cruel.
And nobody was more willing to make Dolly Parton the punchline than Dolly Parton.
She created an image that was deliberately over-the-top: the enormous blond wigs, the makeup, the rhinestones, the high heels, the famously exaggerated figure. She joked about all of it, usually at her own expense. She famously said that it cost a lot of money to look this cheap.
Yet underneath all that artifice was someone remarkably genuine.
Maybe that is one of the great lessons Dolly gave us. Authenticity doesn’t mean stripping away everything colorful or flamboyant about yourself. You can dress up. You can put on the wig. You can wear too much makeup and cover yourself in rhinestones. You can be outrageous and glamorous and larger than life—and still be completely, unapologetically yourself.
For someone whose public image was so carefully constructed, Dolly Parton may have been one of the most real celebrities we ever had.
And then there was Dolly’s faith.
Dolly grew up in the Church of God and spoke throughout her life about God, prayer, and the Christian faith that shaped her childhood. But as she grew older, her understanding of faith became broader and less tied to organized religion. In a 2024 interview, she even said, “I wouldn’t even say I’m religious, though I grew up with that background.” She spoke instead about a universal spiritual force that could be understood as God, Mother Nature, Father Time, or a higher wisdom.
And yet, for someone who hesitated to call herself religious, Dolly was one of the most Christ-like public figures I can think of.
She loved people. She accepted people. She gave generously. She helped those who were hurting. She encouraged children to learn. She treated people with dignity. And rather than appointing herself judge of people whose lives or beliefs differed from her own, she reminded us that God loves us all.
There are people who loudly proclaim their Christianity while devoting an extraordinary amount of energy to deciding whom God condemns. Dolly seemed far more interested in making sure people knew they were loved.
Perhaps Dolly’s faith didn’t fit neatly inside a particular religious box. I don’t think it needed to. When I think about Christ’s command to love our neighbors, care for those in need, and refrain from judging others, I can think of few people who lived those principles more publicly or more consistently than Dolly Parton.
She may not have called herself particularly religious.
But she certainly showed us what love looks like.
There is also one place where I know I will always think of Dolly. Anyone who has traveled I-65 into or out of Mobile, Alabama, probably knows the twin spans I’m talking about. I’ve never heard anyone call them anything but the “Dolly Parton Bridge”—or, more often, simply “the Dolly Partons.”
I’ve crossed the Dolly Partons hundreds of times in my life. They are one of those landmarks that have always just been there, part of the familiar landscape of home. The nickname is affectionate, a little irreverent, and very Alabama—and somehow Dolly seemed exactly the kind of person who could appreciate having a pair of bridges nicknamed for her cleavage.
Millions of people have crossed those bridges over the years, and millions more will cross them in the years to come. I suspect I’m not the only one who will think of Dolly when those great arches come into view.
I always have.
But from now on, I think I’ll smile a little differently when I see the Dolly Partons rising ahead of me. They’ll remind me of the wigs and rhinestones, the music, the generosity, that wonderful laugh, and most of all, the remarkable woman underneath it all.
Maybe that’s why this loss hurts as much as it does.
The world can feel increasingly cruel, angry, judgmental, and divided. Dolly somehow remained Dolly through all of it. She could walk into a room looking like she’d been dipped in a vat of rhinestones and still somehow make everything feel a little warmer.
She was funny without being cruel. She was glamorous without taking herself too seriously. She was enormously successful without forgetting people who had less. She had deeply held beliefs without needing to force them onto everyone else. And she understood that loving people was far more important than judging them.
She was truly one of a kind.
I know ending a remembrance of Dolly Parton with “I Will Always Love You” is probably the biggest cliché imaginable. I’m sure those words have been repeated millions of times since the news broke.
But sometimes something becomes a cliché because nothing else says it quite as well.
I will always love you, Dolly.
And somehow, despite the fact that you didn’t know most of us personally, I genuinely believe you loved us too. You certainly spent a lifetime showing us that you did.
Rest in peace, Dolly.
The world is a little less bright without you in it, but because of you, there will always be a light in the clear blue morning.
I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone
I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone
By Rainer Maria Rilke
I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.
I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother’s face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.
About the Poem
There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes not from having no one around us, but from never quite feeling that we are completely known. Rainer Maria Rilke captures that contradiction in the very first line: “I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough.” We can feel isolated while simultaneously longing for the solitude necessary to understand ourselves.
That tension runs throughout the poem. Rilke wants independence—“my free will”—but he also wants connection. He wants to be involved in the world, to be “among those in the know,” yet he is willing to choose solitude rather than belong somewhere at the cost of himself. There is something powerful in that distinction. Being alone can hurt, but being surrounded by people while unable to be who we truly are can sometimes feel even lonelier.
Perhaps that is why the second half of the poem speaks to me most strongly. Rilke writes, “I want to unfold.” It is such a simple phrase, yet it says so much. We spend much of our lives unfolding, slowly discovering who we are beneath the expectations placed upon us by family, society, religion, work, and even ourselves. Sometimes we bend ourselves into shapes we think others will find acceptable. Rilke rejects that: “Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent; / for there I would be dishonest, untrue.”
There comes a point when we have to stop contorting ourselves merely to fit into the spaces others have made for us. That does not mean refusing to grow or change. Quite the opposite. Rilke wants to unfold, to become more fully himself. There is a difference between changing because we are growing and changing because we are afraid that our authentic selves will not be accepted.
The poem ends with the desire to know and describe oneself as intimately as the familiar things that become almost inseparable from our lives: an everyday jug, a mother’s face, a ship that carried us safely through a terrible storm. Self-knowledge does not arrive all at once. We learn ourselves slowly, through observation and experience, through mistakes and questions, through love and loss, and sometimes through loneliness.
Maybe we are all, in one way or another, still unfolding. We may never understand ourselves perfectly, but perhaps the important thing is that we continue trying to live with a conscience that is true—to others, certainly, but also to ourselves.
“I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone” explores several themes that recur throughout Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry: solitude, identity, self-knowledge, freedom, and the complicated relationship between the individual and the larger world.
The poem is built around contradictions. The speaker is too alone, but not alone enough; too small, but not small enough. He wants freedom but also participation. He wants to remain himself while reflecting something greater than himself. Rather than resolving these tensions, Rilke allows them to coexist, suggesting that becoming fully ourselves often requires learning to live within such contradictions.
The poem changes noticeably with the declaration, “I want to unfold.” From that point forward, the speaker’s concern becomes authenticity. He does not want to remain “crooked” or “bent,” because doing so would make him dishonest. Instead, he seeks a clear understanding of himself, something familiar and recognizable even amid uncertainty.
The final image of a ship surviving “the deadliest storm” gives the poem a quiet sense of endurance. Identity is not merely something we discover by looking inward; it is also shaped by everything that has carried us through the storms of our lives.
About the Poet
Rainer Maria Rilke was born René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke in Prague on December 4, 1875, when the city was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The name by which we know him came later. In 1897, he met the writer and intellectual Lou Andreas-Salomé, who became his lover, mentor, and eventually lifelong confidante. She disliked René, considering it too affected and insufficiently masculine, and encouraged him to adopt the more distinctly German Rainer. The change was part of a larger transformation under her influence: Rilke altered his handwriting, simplified his poetic style, and began developing the voice that would define his mature work. From his collection of given names, he retained Maria, becoming Rainer Maria Rilke.
Rilke traveled extensively throughout Europe and spent significant periods in places including Russia, Paris, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. His encounters with artists, writers, landscapes, and different cultures profoundly influenced his work. In Paris, he worked for a time as secretary to the sculptor Auguste Rodin, whose intense attention to physical objects helped influence Rilke’s own approach to observation and poetry.
Among Rilke’s best-known works are The Book of Hours, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Duino Elegies, and Sonnets to Orpheus. His Letters to a Young Poet, a collection of letters written to aspiring poet Franz Xaver Kappus, has also become one of his most widely read works. In those letters, as in much of his poetry, Rilke returned repeatedly to solitude—not simply as loneliness, but as a space in which a person can learn, create, question, and become.
Rilke died of leukemia in Switzerland on December 29, 1926, at the age of fifty-one. A century later, his poetry continues to resonate because the questions he asked remain familiar: Who am I? How do I remain true to myself? How do I love others without losing myself? And how do I learn to be alone without being consumed by loneliness?
A Mediterranean Weekend
I hope everyone had a good weekend. I’m not exactly thrilled that it’s Monday, but I’m trying to have a more positive outlook about the week ahead. What was everyone up to this weekend?
I had a very laid-back weekend. The most exciting thing I did was try out two new recipes and make another that I adapted from a sandwich I used to get at a restaurant called The Spicy Pickle.
Saturday night, I made Creamy Lemon Chicken and Asparagus Pasta. It was good, though I think I would have liked it even better with broccoli instead of asparagus. I also added more cheese and cream than the original recipe called for, because sometimes recipes just need more cheese and cream.
Yesterday, I did some meal prep for my lunches this week. I made two Mediterranean-inspired dishes: a Mediterranean Shrimp Orzo Salad, adapted from a Shrimp Orzo Salad recipe, and a pita sandwich I call The Med. (And yes, I’m calling something made with pita bread a sandwich.) Since the two recipes share quite a few ingredients, I made them at the same time.
Mediterranean Shrimp Orzo Salad
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 cup uncooked orzo
- 1 large shallot, finely chopped (about ÂĽ cup)
- â…“ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- ÂĽ cup drained and chopped marinated artichokes
- ÂĽ cup chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnish
- 2 Tbsp. white balsamic vinegar
- 2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice (from about 1 lemon)
- Âľ tsp. kosher salt, plus more for salting the water
- ÂĽ tsp. black pepper
- 1 lb. shrimp, cooked, peeled, deveined, and tails removed
- 8 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
- 1 cup sliced English cucumber, cut into half-moons
- Greek dressing, to taste
Preparation
- Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the orzo, stir once, and cook according to the package directions. Drain and rinse under cold water for about 1 minute to stop the cooking process.
- While the orzo cooks, whisk together the shallot, olive oil, artichokes, dill, white balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, kosher salt, and pepper in a large bowl until combined.
- Add the cooled orzo, shrimp, feta, and cucumber to the bowl and toss everything together until well combined.
- Taste the salad and add Greek dressing as desired. I found that it needed a little more flavor, and the Greek dressing gave it just the extra boost it needed.
- Garnish with additional fresh dill and serve chilled or at room temperature.
The Med
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 8 small pita pockets
- ¾–1 lb. very thinly sliced deli chicken
- 4 oz. (¾–1 cup) crumbled feta cheese
- 1 medium cucumber, diced or thinly sliced
- ½ cup sliced pepperoncini, drained
- ¼–½ small red onion, very thinly sliced
- 2 cups Baby Crispy Green Leaf Lettuce
- ⅓–½ cup Greek dressing
- 2 Tbsp. fresh dill, optional
Preparation
- Roughly chop the cucumber, pepperoncini, red onion, and lettuce into smaller pieces.
- Stack or bunch the deli chicken and roughly chop it into bite-size pieces.
- Place the chicken, cucumber, pepperoncini, red onion, lettuce, feta, and dill, if using, on a large cutting board.
- Using a large knife, chop across the mixture repeatedly, turning and gathering everything as needed, until the ingredients are fairly small and evenly combined.
- Transfer the chopped filling to a bowl. Add about â…“ cup of Greek dressing and toss until everything is lightly coated. Add a little more dressing if you prefer it wetter.
- Warm the pita pockets briefly in the microwave, oven, or a dry skillet, just until soft and flexible. This also helps keep them from tearing.
- Cut each pita in half, if needed, to form pockets. Gently open them and spoon in the chopped chicken mixture.
- Serve immediately, with extra Greek dressing or pepperoncini on the side if desired.
Both turned out exceptionally well. The original version of The Med from The Spicy Pickle included black olives and tomatoes—both of which I hate—and was made on ciabatta bread. It also came with a spicy pickle spear, naturally. I didn’t have any spicy pickles on hand, but it was still delicious.
At least now I have some good lunches to look forward to this week, which makes Monday a little more bearable. If you make either of these recipes, let me know what you think. And if you make your own changes, I’d love to hear about those too.
Have a great Monday, everyone!
To Thine Own Self Be True?
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
— Romans 12:2Â
“To thine own self be true.” It sounds biblical. In fact, it is often quoted as though it were a piece of wisdom from Scripture. But the words do not come from the Bible at all. They come from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Polonius gives this advice to his son Laertes before he leaves for France: “This above all: to thine own self be true.”
Over the centuries, those words have taken on a life of their own. Today, we often understand them to mean that we should live authentically, refusing to pretend to be someone we are not. There is wisdom in that idea, but there is no exact biblical equivalent to “be true to yourself.” Part of the reason may be that the modern understanding of the phrase can sometimes become whatever feels right to me must be right. Scripture asks something deeper of us. God calls us to integrity, to an honest heart, and to a life lived according to His truth.
That raises an important question: How does God want us to show ourselves to the world?
For LGBTQ+ Christians, that question can be especially complicated. Many of us have been told that faithfulness to God requires hiding an important part of ourselves. We have been encouraged to remain silent, to change the pronouns when talking about someone we love, to avoid mentioning our relationships, or even to construct an entirely different version of ourselves for family, church, work, or community. Sometimes we have been told that this concealment is what God wants from us.
Yet Scripture repeatedly turns our attention away from appearances and toward what is within us. When Samuel was searching for the man God had chosen to be king, God reminded him, “People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). God already sees us completely. There is no closet door we can close against Him. There is no carefully constructed version of ourselves that can fool God into seeing someone other than who we really are. He sees our sexuality, our fears, our hopes, our desires, our mistakes, our faith, and our capacity to love. Most importantly, He sees our hearts.
That is why Proverbs tells us, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). Guarding our hearts does not mean hiding them. It means caring for what we allow to shape them. We can spend so much energy worrying about how other people see us that we forget to ask what is happening within us. Are we becoming kinder? More compassionate? More forgiving? More courageous? Are we loving God and loving our neighbors? Are our lives producing the fruits of faith?
Being authentic does not mean that every impulse we have must be followed simply because it comes from within us. Christianity has never taught that. Instead, Paul tells us, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Authenticity is not the end of our spiritual journey. It gives us an honest place from which that transformation can begin.
For LGBTQ+ Christians, “do not conform” can have a particularly powerful meaning. The world has plenty of patterns into which it tries to force us. Some tell us what a “real” man or woman should look like. Some tell us whom we are supposed to love. Some tell us that heterosexuality is the only path to a faithful Christian life. Others may tell us that embracing our sexuality requires leaving faith behind altogether.
We do not have to conform to either expectation.
We can be openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer and still seek to become the person God calls us to be. We can embrace who we are while allowing God to transform how we live. Authenticity and discipleship are not opposites. In fact, we cannot truly offer ourselves to God if the self we offer is merely a disguise created to satisfy someone else’s expectations. God is the only One whose expectations we should ultimately seek to satisfy. The world may impose its own expectations about how we should look, whom we should love, and who we should be, but those earthly expectations cannot compare or compete with what God asks of us. What matters is not whether we fit the image others have created for us, but whether we are faithfully becoming the person God calls us to be.
I often talk about the path God wants me to follow, and I pray that He will keep me on that path. To me, being true to myself also means being true to the person God calls me to be. I do not always know where that path will lead, and I certainly do not always follow it perfectly, but I can continue to seek God’s guidance and trust Him to redirect me when I stray. Being authentic does not mean that I alone decide who I should be; it means bringing my whole, honest self before God and asking Him to guide me toward the life He wants me to live. In that way, being true to myself becomes inseparable from being true to God.
Paul also warns us against measuring ourselves by the lives of others. He writes, “Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load” (Galatians 6:4–5). There will always be people eager to tell us who we ought to be. There will always be someone who thinks we are too gay, not gay enough, too religious, not religious enough, too outspoken, or too quiet. If our identity depends upon satisfying everyone else’s expectations, we will spend our entire lives performing for an audience whose approval constantly changes.
Instead, we should examine our own actions. We should ask whether we are living with honesty and integrity. We should ask whether we are treating others with dignity. We should ask whether our relationships reflect love, faithfulness, kindness, and respect. We should ask whether the person we show to the world and the person God sees in our heart are becoming more and more the same person.
Perhaps that is the Christian version of being true to ourselves.
It isn’t simply, This is who I am, so I can do whatever I want. It is something much richer: This is who I am, and I will bring my whole self before God and allow Him to shape the way I live.
There should be no contradiction between living openly as an LGBTQ+ person and striving to live faithfully as a Christian. We do not have to choose between authenticity and faith. We can acknowledge whom we love. We can refuse to be ashamed of who we are. We can live without pretending. At the same time, like every other Christian, we continue striving to become more loving, compassionate, merciful, humble, and faithful.
The Third Letter of John contains a simple expression of joy that beautifully captures this idea: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 1:4). I love that phrase, walking in the truth, because truth is not something we merely acknowledge privately. We walk in it. We carry it into our relationships, our families, our churches, our workplaces, and our communities. Walking in truth means refusing to build our lives around a lie, whether that lie is about who we are or about who God calls us to become.
Shakespeare told us, “To thine own self be true.” Scripture asks us to go further. Be honest about who you are. Guard your heart. Refuse to let the world force you into its molds. Examine your own life rather than comparing it to someone else’s. Remember that God looks beyond appearances and sees your heart.
And then take that honest, authentic self and walk in the truth.
God does not need the person others have told you to be. He wants you—not a disguise, not a performance, not a carefully edited version designed to earn someone else’s approval. Bring your whole self to Him, and let Him continue transforming you into the person He calls you to be.
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Joe
The Closet Professor 