Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Michael Jackson...RIP

The words below are from Matthew Goodman (the author of "Hold Love Strong"). Matthew's words blew me away...as did his book. I was never one for lyrics...but now I am! Matthew wrote this shortly after Michael's death...but I'm a procrastinator!

From Matthews blog...

The saddest thing about Michael Jackson’s death is not only the ravenous reporting on his human failings that have followed his passing, but also that we did not and still do not follow his lead. If we listen to his songs as directives, or if we read them as commandments than we can’t help but see how his mission as a musician was to address our failure to love, respect and cherish each other as simultaneously unique and like human beings. This message, the celebration of each other, our innate, equal and essential humanity and self-dignity should not only be his belief system and ours, but it should also be our practice. As with all of us, I am sure, Michael Jackson had numerous vices, phobias and isms. But what he, unlike any other person in America, had was a lifelong birds eye view of what the world is with regards to what we create and consume domestically and what we export, and what is created and exported by other countries as well. Not only should we be dancing to his music now, and not only should we be paying our respect to him, but we should also study his music, in schools and universities as well as independently, as the meditations of a visionary. We should pay heed to his teachings. Let this, his doctrine of universalism, be his legacy.

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