Someone Mentioned Michael Jackson

I wrote this the day after he died. When his name surfaced today, I remembered and wanted to share.
Everyone has a comment about Michael Jackson. I’m no different. So far I haven’t reflected on his career, his talent, his amazing contributions to the world.
I’ve been thinking about the person who had to live in his skin. The person who seemed to want to do right, regardless of the small or large mistakes he made. My first thoughts were so sad. I cried for his soul.
I see him as the poster child for the most damaged adult child of a dysfunctional family/society(though I don’t know anything about his family…guess I could read up on it pretty easily now). He’s also the poster child to give us an image of cancerous materialism. I watched a slide show of his career on yahoo news last night. I cried that he is human yet seemed so uncomfortable in his own skin, so desperate to get out. I cried because someone so potentially beautiful had become such a horrible image.
I don’t know what we think we’re doing in our society. We each have an idea of why we’re here, what we’re supposed to accomplish and give in our life time. For some it’s simply a not knowing. A going along in the wave of energy that engulfs a soul and hides reason. Could this be it, riding waves of just going along and anything to mask the pain?
I was just like the rest, obsessed with Michael Jackson for several years. I probably wanted to marry him. I don’t remember. I memorized Thriller, the song and the video. But remembering that and thinking that his talent is gone from this world are not what bring tears.
It’s that this spiritual being suffered in a way most of us can not imagine because he shared his talent, did what he had a passion for, made his livelihood in front of us all and we judged him constantly. You are so great! You are so deformed! You are so sick! You are brilliant!
Can he rest now, ignore the criticism and praise that have flared up after his unexpected death and be answerable only to a loving God? That’s the way it’s always been anyway.