Pompei, Italy 2009: Uneven paths have been around for ages. We all must walk our own cobblestone streets during our individual days on Earth. It would do us all some good to remember that it is never a smooth cakewalk for anybody. May that realization arouse our compassions and ease our judgments as we see and evaluate each other.
From Trent Ling:
It would be neither possible nor edifying to undertake a straightforward account of the iconic life of Michael Jackson, who died suddenly yesterday at the age of 50. Even the superlatives “original,” “ground-breaking,” and “legendary” fail to capture his larger-than-life aura. Though Michael’s public life alone provides rain forests of flashing neon spiritual markers, the Spirit calls for substantial pause and respect in light of his uncanny life and untimely death.
“… man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” Hebrews 9:27. In a strict equalizer, God’s edict brings each of us eventually and unavoidably low, humble, and vulnerable. There is no escape, no matter how “great” or “small” we may be. Acts 26:22.
“Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take.” Jeremiah 31:21. God insists that we know and remember where and when we have been. At a minimum, Michael Jackson has indelibly fixed and memorialized years and decades of our own lives as they have paralleled his own densely decorated timeline. His brands, songs, moves, looks, albums, performances, and troubles have publicly spread across the entirety of the past 40 years! Remarkably, retrospectively God even uses the courses of Michael’s life to account for our own. This gratuitous service alone accounts for some of the proper reverence paid to his life and legacy. In all of that, there is plenty of room for an outpouring of appreciation, empathy, horror, and grief given what we have even casually witnessed.
Michael Jackson seems to have been a consummate orchestrator and producer. His maestro was sorely missing as his lifeless form placed on a gurney under a plain white sheet was seemingly casually lifted into and out of a transfer helicopter on live television. This raw and unpolished maneuvering painfully revealed the fragility of life and the ultimate lack of control we will all endure one day, if not today.
Of course, what remains of Michael’s legend no longer benefits him. This too is how it will be for each of us. What will you leave to those surviving you? That question cries out! Does your answer sufficiently and appropriately cry back?
Though spiritually nutritious buffets remain to be gained in the shadow of God’s creation of Michael Jackson, perhaps it is fitting today merely to offer a modest sampling of the menu God has conjured in light of Michael’s life minimally marked by zeal, endurance, and gift.
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