Thoughts on Michael Jackson
Many of you heard or read about the death of Michael Jackson today. I found out through twitter moments after it happened. It's shocking news, to think of a world without Michael Jackson is surreal. My first cassette at the age of 7 was Michael Jackson's BAD and my first CD at the age of 11 was Dangerous. He was an icon in our culture and this world, influencing everything from music to fashion but he was also very unhappy and troubled.
I came across this article from Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish, please read:
There are two things to say about him. He was a musical genius; and he was an abused child. By abuse, I do not mean sexual abuse; I mean he was used brutally and callously for money, and clearly imprisoned by a tyrannical father. He had no real childhood and spent much of his later life struggling to get one. He was spiritually and psychologically raped at a very early age - and never recovered. Watching him change his race, his age, and almost his gender, you saw a tortured soul seeking what the rest of us take for granted: a normal life.
But he had no compass to find one; no real friends to support and advise him; and money and fame imprisoned him in the delusions of narcissism and self-indulgence. Of course, he bears responsibility for his bizarre life. But the damage done to him by his own family and then by all those motivated more by money and power than by faith and love was irreparable in the end. He died a while ago. He remained for so long a walking human shell.
I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone.
I grieve for him; but I also grieve for the culture that created and destroyed him. That culture is ours' and it is a lethal and brutal one: with fame and celebrity as its core values, with money as its sole motive, it chewed this child up and spat him out.
I hope he has the peace now he never had in his life. And I pray that such genius will not be so abused again.
- Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish
MJ's issues from his past seeped out into his public life causing alot of us to see him as a pervert or a monster. Maybe he was, but was he too far gone? Could he have been picked up and brushed off and helped? I believe he could. Is MJ moonwalking in heaven right now? I don't know. I wonder if anyone ever shared God's love and grace with him? I wonder if he knew.
I wonder if his kids will get to live a normal life now, or at least something better. I hope they do, to live under that kind of shadow can be a torture in itself. I don't know.
I do know this: Issues of the heart affect us all. The last few paragraphs of that article really got me, alot of you are being chewed up right now. You're in a spot where you feel trapped, that you can not escape. You deal the best you know how and our society lends to your torture. It's brutal and it's hell, but you don't have to live like that. Some of us see celebrities in the world and think "they've got it all"..."I want to be just like them"..."they're perfect". But the truth is that NONE of us have it all together. No matter where we are in life, no matter what society says we are in life. We all deal. We all need someone to resonate with. We all need to be heard. We all need support. We all need love.
How are you dealing? Who in your life is your support? Who can you help deal? Who can you support?
Grace & Peace ~ El Clinto
