Please Read These Words

A few months ago, my 3-yr-old daughter Izzy learned about Michael Jackson from her 5-yr-old friend Maya.  Maya’s mom is a big fan of MJ.

Since Izzy’s discovery of the King of Pop, we’ve been regularly watching “youtube” videos of all MJ’s hits.  Since Thriller was one of my first cassettes, I felt like I’ve had the chance to re-experience the magic of Michael Jackson’s legendary talent through my daughter.

I remember breakdancing to songs in my friend’s kitchen in 1982, and just two days ago, I was singing along to, it don’t matter if you’re black or white… with my daughter.  Izzy sat mesmerized by the costumes, the dancing, and especially the faces of humanity blending into one another at the end of the video.

Michael Jackson is one of the greatest singers, dancers, and performers our world has ever seen.  Because of my daughter, I was able to able to put down the cynicism and cruel opinions that have been promoted by the media circus surrounding MJ’s later life.

Whether or not Michael Jackson behaved dangerously with children we will never know; but we can all at least agree that he was never given the chance to be a child himself, and that a life like his has psychological repercussions.

The day before Michael Jackson died, Izzy was at pre-school talking about her “boyfriend”–an entirely new topic for everyone–and one of the teachers asked her who her boyfriend was.  She said it was Michael Jackson.  It felt pretty weird that he was the talk of our household on Wednesday, and on Thursday, he left the world.

Fortunately, the music lives on, and we can always visit MJ on Youtube; today however, I write these words to honor the King of Pop, and Izzy’s first boyfriend:

Michael Jackson, thank you for inspiring my daughter Izzy, and for all the memories–especially Billy Jean, hearing that song’s baseline and beat was a religious experience!  Thank you for your message of peace, hope, brotherhood and sisterhood across creeds and colors; thank you for your dedication to the craft of song and dance; and thanks for giving my MTV generation some of the best music videos the world will ever see.

I stand corrected.  This post used to be titled, Nelson Mandela Kicks Ass… I fell prey to the false information that he wrote these words for his inaugural address.  These are actually the words of Marianne Williamson, from her book, A Return to Love.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.