Inner Michael

So as a Michael Jackson fan, how do you heal from this loss? Is there a possibility of any healing, ever when every day something happens to disturb the wound just when it’s beginning to scab over? Just when you thought there was no more to be said? No more lies to be told? How can you heal when it is the anniversary of his death, his birthday or there is an interview scheduled or a court appearance? How do you heal when you are constantly wincing from the sting of it and reeling from another reminder?

How do you manage when the tears that well up have to be choked back because you are not in polite or sympathetic company? When you are exhausted from crying yet again, tears that are not voluntary for a man you never met yet feels closer than family? When you have cried more tears than you can afford and don’t understand why? How do you honor this man in a world that missed the point? How do you quell the anger, the outrage? How do you begin to go on? Where do you get the energy to deal with the combat fatigue? The helplessness? The knowing that you are one of the many (but still the minority) who know the truth about Michael Jackson and the media’s folly?

How do you deal with the skeptics and haters with their vile comments and with relatives who suggest a therapist because it is you they think unbalanced? Or you are called “a crazed or crazy Michael Jackson fan?”

What are you supposed to do when those same lies that set your teeth on edge show up yet one more time on yet another gossipy blog online?  Or when the copy and paste brand of lazy journalism says yet again Michael Jackson died of “an overdose of drugs,” implies he died by his own hand or by a voluntary overuse of prescription drugs? When yet another “journalist” talks about his face as if it was a public exhibit offered only for critique. Or another interview where the interviewer is “leading the witness?” And yet one more time you have to ask how is this at all relevant to who Michael Jackson was or his real legacy?

How are you expected to react when a reputable pharmacy- Walgreens stocks a Halloween mask called “Wacko Jacko?” And when the “Thrill the World” fundraising event comes to your neighborhood and people protest? Or when Michael Jackson’s name is uncovered on a school and the righteously indignant crawl out of the woodwork spewing the same old tabloid party line or he is inducted into a National Dance Hall of Fame and a well meaning but grossly misinformed clergy loudly and publicly protests the “abomination?”

And how are you supposed to take it when the brand Michael Jackson is treated as a joke or as something in bad taste. Or when yet again someone makes snide comments or predictably steers a conversation about Michael deliberately into dark spaces?

How do you get through one more thing that comes up to assault a man you know to be a shining example of humanity and who is no longer here and can’t defend himself? What do you do when friends snort in disgust or say things that make you hold your breath? How are you to fathom that someone who abandoned Michael or who wasn’t there for him during his trial tells an audience what a good friend Michael was? When those in the music business want to siphon just a little more cash from someone whose life they conscripted and scripted while riding his coattails into infamy?

How are you to keep your wits about you when yet one more book about the real Michael Jackson is released by someone who has no idea who Michael Jackson was, what he stood for and who “doesn’t get Michael” by any stretch of imagination and speaks of things that you know are not true or tries to demonstrate something that didn’t even live in Michael’s world? When real pedophiles write one of those books? Or a known sycophant or tabloid reporter does?  How do you swallow the reality that the tabloid reporter with the worst reputation and the most slanderous and salacious pen knowingly did the most damage writes a book and then reports that “the media lies to you?”

How do you bear it when the topic of conversation includes Michael Jackson and his legacy and the conversation steers, or is steered to drugs, accusations, the P-word or his “tragic life?” And not one word of that conversation includes his humanitarian work that was planet-wide? Or that feeling that seems to have taken up permanent residence in your gut is stirred every time there is an upcoming interview or yet another piece that will focus on his “trials,” “problems,” “addictions,” “baby-dangling” and here-we-go-again “crazy fans?”

How do you do this while knowing the man’s heart? When you have been loyal to him for a year, years, decades or your whole lifetime? When you know this man called Michael neither could nor would, harm a child because you clearly see the light in him, the reverence in his touch or you have researched his humanitarian legacy and generous work with children?

And the trial? Oh god, the trial. How in hell are you supposed to handle it when a doctor, (a doctor for god’s sake!) who was administering medicine and medical treatment to Michael claims that Michael killed himself? Or that same incompetent very visibly and with an audacity unparalleled makes a visit to Forest Lawn where Michael is buried? And how are you expected to survive a coming media circus and trial where you know Michael Jackson will be put on trial for his own death?

How do you continue—heck how do you breathe, in a world that treats people this way? That disrespects the dead? That continues to wring a little more cash out of the brand? That scrapes just a little more sensation from a man who was fodder for jokes and finger pointing and deliberately manipulated “breaking news?” Yes, they are breaking the news. They are breaking the world.

How?

How do you continue in a world without Michael’s light? Any light? How do you go on without him?

“There are ways to get there.”

Really?

Really.

Anger is a hot emotion and it generates lots of heat and flame and fire. Running anger continually through a biological system (the human body) can be damaging and “burn out the wires”  and eventually, the circuitry.” Living in a state of perpetual anger is not healthy. It may seem as if it is a way to attack those who seem so ignorant. But it’s not. It does not hurt them so much as it becomes an internal poison for the person (and body) holding it. It, like acid, eats away at its container. So what are you supposed to do?

Here is where you really need to pay attention:

You are being asked to bear witness to a planetary phenomenon that is part of your calling and a piece of your life mission. You must do it; you simply must. You are here to evolve the species. Yes you. While I don’t like the term “Michael’s Army” because I have been a lifelong anti-war activist, you have been drafted into this morass for a reason. The mission is much greater than you realize. The issue is much bigger than Michael. He asked you to change the world and that is exactly what he meant. The momentum toward change has already begun and you are in the midst of it. You are about the business of creating it. You are part of the plan to create the future.

Your mission is nothing less that to change the heart of the world. To be instrumental in the implementation of a kinder, gentler tomorrow. To employ tactics that increase the humanity and compassion on planet earth. We are moving into an age where humanity is becoming aware of its oneness and as being part of an interconnected web of life. The species is not going to survive nor is the world if something doesn’t change. Our species will not make it if we don’t step from out of the shadow into the light.

“Shadow” is everything that is wrong with the species—the tendency for self destruction, jealousy, envy, greed, entitlement, ignorance, the uncaring and self absorbed lifestyle, competition that wins at the expense of another, the ‘isms’—racism, sexism, Lookism, ageism, tribalism, the lack of responsibility, perpetrating indignity, discounting the humanity of another, treachery, discriminatory religiosity, terrorism, and most egregiously—indifference.

With deep weeping and deep grief that breaks the heart comes an opportunity. Via the deepest and most gritty grieving—the experience of it cracks open the human heart. The aftermath of that kind of grieving softens the heart and that softens the human which softens the humanity. As fans, you are the ones who bear witness in a focused and concentrated way the all too visible foibles of humanity. You can’t and won’t change them unless you first really identify them. You can’t create what you want without knowing what you don’t want. You have to identify the undesirable to create that which is desired. Michael helped you do that. You watched the inhumanity aimed with laser accuracy at a skinny little music man who only wanted to entertain and bring joy and a respite from the real world. Why would he think it important to offer escapism? Do you suppose he knew how painful is the real world? Do you think perhaps he glimpsed something in humanity that it doesn’t recognize in itself? Its own brilliance? Its own salvation? Did he dare to challenge the darkness? Did he dare to ask us to change it? And by changing it to thereby change the world?

Did he show us what salvation would mean, would look like? Did he give us a blueprint for Eden in a place called Neverland? Did he illustrate racial togetherness by uniting the races? Show us agelessness by bringing together and cherishing people of all ages? Did he reveal how to find a meeting of minds for leaders, countries, armies? The uniting of the world through one language—music and the language of love? Did he illustrate with his own body the blending of the races in the collective body of humanity? The ecstasy within the dance of humanity? How to unite multitudes as one voice, one mind, one huge sea of human love? And did he, through the use of his body feature on that canvas and the canvas of the world—the changing face of humanity?

Michael brought his life to the world and gave it an incomparable gift. The fact that the metaphor and the gift is not yet recognized does not change the value of that gift. He marshaled forces for change, showed us how to treat children of the world (and how not to.) By becoming a target, he showed us treachery at its worst and how to withstand it with dignity. He showed how to hate the sin but embrace the sinner.  He certainly got angry but at the same time, he knew and said that bad behavior comes from a deep place of woundedness—a place that craves and needs a little more love. Against suspicion and criticism, he was a healer of minds, and hearts and even of those with illnesses of the body. Michael understood that given the right ecosystem and environment infused with acceptance and with love, people heal from all kinds of things. He even courageously showed us how purity in love can be twisted by minds incapable of it and how dangerous it is when that treachery plays out in the world.

Michael Jackson showed us the dark side of human nature while at the same time showing us the way to the light. He is another way shower who came to teach yet was unappreciated by the students while they were in his classroom. Some don’t even know yet that they were in a classroom. There are indicators that Michael understood his mission. He took it seriously. He steadfastly saw it through with as much stamina as he could muster against insurmountable odds and the darkest of forces.

Michael Jackson, the most famous person in the world, stood center stage and showed us by his presence there alone, exactly what is wrong with humanity. All of the darkness of human nature came at him and swirled around him while he kept on singing his prayers for humanity. He used his voice to ask us to change it, to change the world, to demonstrate the best of humanity and to do it by looking within and lighting our little internal flame knowing that if we did that, the whole world would glow with the brilliance of humanity.

And then he left because he was tired. Because he had done as much as was humanly possible. Because his job was done. And he was taken away in sleep, in the most peaceful way possible. No cancer to slowly eat away at his body or dementia to dissolve his brilliant creative mind. His passing was gentle, kind. He slipped away. I am not saying it was Ok for it to happen then and that way and at the hands of another; I am just looking at “what is” from another perspective. And I am not the architect of the Universe. That doesn’t fall to me to do.

His passing, if it had to be, was gentle and worthy of one so loved—no violence, no struggle; just a quiet passing into the next dimension. The movie This Is It was not the comeback or farewell he had planned but it had more impact than a concert series ever would. No critics got to say how his dancing now compared to then or had the opportunity to critique his performance. Who knows what might have happened? Who knows what might have been said? If history is any indicator, would they have been suddenly kind? Would Michael have been treated with more of the same sophomoric ignorance that characterized much of his life? Maybe we all have been spared, including Michael, and given an unrecognized gift. Michael did his comeback-farewell his way. His way broke hearts and by breaking them opened them, brought more into his magical orbit, spanned yet another generation. So his passing was a gift too, because thousands have re-discovered him and therefore his message. People were weeping in the streets for this man. That says a lot about who he was. People all over the world have undergone a transformation as a direct result of Michael’s passing—some with a spiritual emergency and conversion, some with hearts that have broken and by breaking opened and became softer and more magnanimous human beings, some by finding their voice or mission, some by honoring his legacy with action against the injustices of humanity and the world.

We didn’t want him to leave. We want him back. But we are not in charge. We do not design or implement the greater plan. We do not decide when and how someone should leave us—that is not in our hands. And we don’t ever like being left behind. We would rather have Michael here. Is that selfish or is that Ok? I don’t have those answers, no one does. But I do see the gift in Michael’s passing. Do you know that the wounded healers make the greatest healers? You qualify. So go heal the world.

Michael Jackson left the world a better place because he was here. He set in motion a change through his love of his fans, his relationship with them demonstrated to the world and the legacy that they are—because he was here. It is the fans who can change the world. There are signs of that change everywhere. Michael Jackson fans are part of those legions that will create that changing face of humanity. It is a very real mission and the goal is to change the world and make it a better place exactly as Michael said. He said “you are my legacy” and that is more a declaration than a request.

There are different levels of fans—there are those who saw him as an entertainer, a musician, an icon and who swoon over his image and the stage persona. There are those screaming fans who see him as a sex symbol. There are those who see the legacy, who “get” who Michael was and who wish to carry on his work in the wake of his passing. There are those who understand what he represented and are his advocates. And there are others who see beyond the immediate future all the way to the infinity loop. All backgrounds, all levels of intelligence, all races, ages and abilities. What they have in common is one skinny little Moonwalker who showed them who and how to be.

Michael would want you to complete your grieving in your own way and in your own time but he would remind you that there isn’t forever and there is work to be done. He said that very thing in This Is It. He talked about the planet but he also indicated that he meant humanity and he did that though his work.

Michael did it in a dignified way. He was steadfast. He was resolute. But he did not condone infighting, fighting or war making. There is something to be said for the resolute gentle warrior. He would not want the fans to grieve forever. He would not want their sadness to paralyze them. He would not want their anger to make an already wounded humanity worse by adding more anger and shadow. He would want his fans to be above all that. He would want them to use their voices in an intelligent and strategic way. He would want them to dignify him through their reasonableness and behavior.

Michael did not care for the screaming or for the frenzy. He has said it disturbed him, made him afraid. It doesn’t serve him and it doesn’t serve his legacy to continue it. It makes all the fans look bad and crazy. It gives the media an excuse to dehumanize them, and make them illegitimate. Nobody takes a crazy person seriously. And that is what the media is hoping for. They want the fans to make themselves look foolish or to burn out. They took every opportunity to demonize Michael and now will turn on the fans who are his legacy.

Michael did not change the world by screaming at his enemies, by wailing his fate or flailing at imaginary demons. He steadfastly spoke his message over and over allowing it to speak for itself and for him. He did not point fingers or divide and conquer within his ranks; he unified. Michael was a collaborator. There are things that are being done in Michael’s name or with his name connected that do not serve Michael, his fans or his legacy. And they certainly do not serve the world or make it a better place; they make it a bitter place.

Michael might prefer that we all take our sadness and anger and convert it into action. Michael silently and in a dignified manner went about the business of his humanitarian work and peacemaking. He let his deeds speak for him. When he got angry he protested the injustice with action or with music. He did not incite riots or use inflammatory language or judge with condemnation. Michael did not fight fire with fire—that is a scorched earth policy. That is about as effective as the MAD policy of the cold war years when the weapons and the world was one button away from oblivion. MAD stand for mutually assured destruction. That is when the only tactic and outcome is doomsday. Michael fought with love: not a sappy kind of love but a steadfast love that called people out in a dignified way. He frankly stated how he felt about what was done to him. He did not lose it. He did not shout down his enemies. He took the stage and loved—fiercely. His voice was his lyrics. His song was the means of delivery. He used that kind of love that calls them out with a tough love that stands as a mirror and says—“look here; do you like what you see?” Michael illustrated and demonstrated. And he did it with determination and dignity. His fans, if they are truly his legacy, will follow in those footsteps. No one else can. They should consider themselves the changing face of humanity. Want to change the world in honor of Michael, in Michael’s name, as his legacy? Demonstrate to the world with dignity: this is what it looks like.