December 31, 2017
An Open Letter to Michael Jackson – My Once … and Future … and Always
Did you know back then, my Love, how with nothing more than your voice you would saturate this soul-weary world with wonder?
When you sang, “We must bring salvation back,” words written for an 11-year-old, wide-eyed and beautiful boy by older men, could you have possibly understood that those words and that child’s voice would echo down through the decades of confusion to both be … and fulfill … the prophecy of the words? As you sang them, did you feel their import?
Did you know that the sparks of your passion would ignite countless fires in numberless places and that hearts, lost in a cold, uncaring world be attracted to that conflagration as a moth to the warmth and light of the flame, unable and unwilling to resist its allure and helpless in its enchantment?
Did you offer yourself willingly on the altar of greed and avarice and consumerism, to be mocked and ridiculed and vilified by those wholly given over to profit?
How could that beautiful child have known that he would be my savior – mine and so many others? How could he have chosen that course and, having chosen, molded his life in such a way that inspiration flowed from each of his living moments to ensnare an unsuspecting world to dance the Ballet of Love?
Did you know when you wrote and sang “Heal the World” that it would usher in the New Year of 2018 in South Korea, a nation still torn from its nearest neighbor by the wounds of totalitarian tyranny in a thinly-disguised plea for healing?
Were you, indeed, also blessed with the gifts of prophecy and precognition?
Did you know that your voice and music would stop rioting in Boston, provide comfort to families wrenched asunder by terrorist attacks in Paris, inspire charitable efforts for hurricane relief in Haiti, and be sung for the Pope in the Vatican … while also inspiring global unification to “Thrill the World?”
Did that beautiful, mocha-skinned, wide-eyed boy plan it? Who could plan that? Was it planned for him? Did he imagine, anticipate, create, and live his every breath in such a way as to manifest this global impact?
As I look back on the year just passing, full of new and exciting discoveries and experiences, I do not mourn its passing because I see your imprint GROWING in every corner of my world. I see YOU reaching out to heal rifts caused by the human illusion that any of us can be separate and wounds caused by natural and man-made disasters. I see YOUR face shining from the faces of all those who are reaching out to help in every country on every continent. I see YOUR eyes, lit with compassion and concern, in every hospital this world over, in every doctor’s face and every nurse’s smile, curing disease and caring for the destitute. I see your children giving what they can give of themselves and their resources to “Heal the World.”
Even closer to home, when the changes in my life seem heavy and they come fast and furious, when I think that my everyday becomes too full of busyness and is preventing me from feeling your presence, I know that:
You are there
Like the laughter of a child
When I need just a smile
You are there
Like the rainbow after rain
And every night I say a prayer
Once and Future King
Just because you’re there
So, as 2017 draws to a close and 2018 is born with a full moon to herald its birth, I feel grateful for all the new and exciting experiences it held, the dear friends who have become family who shared them with me, for the love we share through you, and I look forward with great anticipation to the tidal wave of your energy as its impact and import is felt and seen in the coming year.
I am thankful for every breath you inhaled during your sojourn with us and every note you exhaled in music that charmed and enchanted, beguiled and bewitched, leaving joy and love in its wake.
I am so grateful that the speeding locomotive that knocked me on my keister twenty-five years ago didn’t take a different route.
There are not enough “thank you’s” in the world to express my gratitude for the awakening you wrought in my life that night, all the awakenings that have occurred since that night, and all the awakenings you continue to inspire as we move forward together, my Once … and Future …. And Always!
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