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This Friday marks one year since the passing of Michael Jackson. His <\/p>\n The truth about Michael as I knew and understood him was something else <\/span><\/p>\n The tragedy of his life was his failure to achieve these noble aims. <\/span><\/p>\n Once in the midst of the thirty hours of recordings we did together <\/span><\/p>\n Polite to a fault, he was a soft and gentle soul who prided himself <\/span><\/p>\n What he could not see was that overindulging in medication prescribed <\/span><\/p>\n I do not for a moment believe Michael was a pedophile. Those who judge <\/span><\/p>\n A year after his death what most haunts me is the knowledge that <\/span><\/p>\n But while his life is sadly irretrievable, the lessons to be culled <\/span><\/p>\n When first I learned of his death my immediate reaction, I am ashamed <\/span><\/p>\n Twelve months later the anger is gone, replaced by a deep sadness. He <\/span><\/p>\n A year after his untimely passing it is time to finally mourn <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This Friday marks one year since the passing of Michael Jackson. His legacy remains highly controversial. On one side there are ardent fans who consider him the central inspiration of their lives. On the other there are strident critics who believe he was hopelessly weird with an unhealthy interest in children. In the middle are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-values"],"yoast_head":"\n
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\nlegacy remains highly controversial. On one side there are ardent fans who consider
\nhim the central inspiration of their lives. On the other there are strident critics
\nwho believe he was hopelessly weird with an unhealthy interest in children. In
\nthe middle are those who simply love his music and miss his talent.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
\nentirely. Michael Jackson forever remained the broken boy who yearned for a
\nnormal childhood but was thrust reluctantly into a spotlight that slowly became
\naddictive. Immersed in a celebrity culture rife with human corruption, he
\nyearned to be innocent. Starved of affection, he spent his life looking for love
\nbut ultimately settled for attention. Surrounded by sycophants who indulged his
\nevery unhealthy whim, he longed to find an authentic and spiritual environment.
\nAnd trapped in a cocoon of incarcerating fame, he craved to consecrate his
\ncelebrity to a cause larger than himself. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nMichael knew that G-d had given him a special gift and with it the power to
\n‘heal the world, make it a better place.’ He understood the responsibility of
\ncelebrity and was devastated as his was slowly transformed into notoriety. He
\nhated to be hated and was crushed by the chasm between what he saw as his
\nsincere intentions to do good verses the uncharitable public perception of him
\nas a shallow materialist.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nfor publication in a book that would allow Michael to speak directly to the
\npublic, he revealed how defamatory his celebrity had become. “You get tired and
\nit just wears you down. You can’t go somewhere where they don’t manipulate what
\nyou do and say, that bothers me so much, and you are nothing like the person
\nthat they write about, nothing. To get called Whacko, that’s not nice. People
\nthink something is wrong with you because they make it up. I am nothing like
\nthat. I am the opposite of that.”<\/span><\/p>\n
\non being different to other celebrities. Whereas they partied in nightclubs,
\nMichael loved being around ordinary families. Where they put, as Michael said,
\nneedles in their arms, he was a vegetarian who wouldn’t be caught dead with a
\nstreet drug. And where they, as Michael maintained, engaged in tawdry relationships,
\nMichael preferred the company of innocent kids.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nby a doctor was just as destructive as a street drug and was motivated by the
\nsame celebrity emptiness. He was also oblivious to his own excess when it came
\nto kids. It was one thing to show kindness and friendship to children. It was
\nanother thing entirely to invite them into your bed.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nhim as such forget that the only time he was charged he was utterly acquitted,
\nand it is time for the public to exonerate him as well. But he gave himself
\nlicense to cross lines of basic propriety that brought him into disrepute and
\nsoiled his message as to the purity and innocence that adults could learn from
\nchildren. For a man who spent his life trying to educate the public as to the
\nwonders of childhood, this was a monumental failure, and he knew it. The
\nsuspicion cast on him by a public whose love he had spent a lifetime
\ncultivating marked the principal sorrow of his life. It would have tragic
\nconsequences when he turned increasingly to painkillers to numb the ache.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nMichael’s life could so easily have been saved. What Michael needed was not
\npainkillers but counseling, not the numbing of an inner woundedness through
\ndrugs but the awakening of an inner conscience through spiritual guidance. He
\nneeded a wise voice in his ear guiding him to a mastery of his demons before
\nthey consumed him. Any number of people could have rescued Michael from
\nimpeding oblivion. Most of all, he craved the love and validation of his
\nfather. What emerges most strikingly in our recorded conversations –
\nconversations that Michael knew would be read by a wide audience, perhaps
\nincluding his parents – was the hurt he felt toward his father on the one hand,
\nand the extreme affection he harbored for him on the other. Michael had many
\nfans, but he played primarily to an audience of one.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nfrom his life are not. Few were as eloquent in articulating the profound lessons
\nparents could learn from being around their children. Fewer still were more
\nattuned to the lifelong scarring of children who were victims of neglect. I can
\nstill hear Michael’s daily admonishments to me to look my children in the eye
\nand tell them I loved them and to never allow a night to go by without reading
\nthem a bedtime story.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nto say, was anger. You silly man, I thought. How could you? You knew your children,
\nwhom you adored, depended on you. You were the most devoted father. How could
\nyou orphan them? You Michael, to whom G-d bequeathed such unequaled talent,
\njust threw it away?<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwas an imperfect candle. But his striving to go beyond the caricature he had become
\nand redeem his life by visiting orphanages and hospitals was illuminating. The
\nlyrics of his songs spoke to the human yearning to mend the broken pieces of
\nthe human soul and become whole. Whether it was encouraging himself and his fans
\nto be the man looking in the mirror, or healing the world, he wished for his
\nmusic to inspire people to choose goodness.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nMichael as a man. To remember him not as an entertainer, or to miss him as an international
\nicon – an object without feelings or pain – but as a struggling soul who tried
\nto transform the pain of his broken childhood into an inspirational message of parents
\ncherishing their children. It is time to evaluate Michael his life not in the
\ncontext of an idol who had much money and fame but as a man who searched for a
\nreal home that was not a stage.<\/span><\/p>\n