One more thought on Michael...

Today is my birthday - and in addition to eating at a fine French place in town - I am hoping to stop by a club later tonight to do some dancing to a Michael Jackson tribute evening. But here's the thing: while I have written about the broken genius and the blessings found in the way MJ created beauty out of his wounds, let's also be clear that this was a very hurting man/child who seemed to descend more and more into a nearly freak show life with each passing year. How else do you explain Neverland? His surgeries? Changing the color of his skin and on and on?

Now, I didn't start with this because that would have been cheap and unkind and oh so obvious. Besides, the frenzied bottom feeding that fuels so much of what we used to call the"news media" is doing all of this ad nauseam, yes? So, if you care to dwell on just the excess and bad decisions, to say nothing of the nearly pathological nature of some of MJ's advisers, you won't have any trouble finding company. Just turn on the TV and it is everywhere. Like Lou Reed has said, "Stick a fork in it - it is done!"

What I have been concerned to locate is the blessing within the wound - the eagle inside the egg - the presence of God amidst some of our ugliest humanity. To say that MJ died because of his own excess is true - but only part of the truth. And as those far wiser than I have observed: a partial truth is really a lie. So, let's be slow to judge MJ as Jesus advised; there is always room for truthful words of judgement - they give us clarity and insight - but never room for gratuitous or cruel words that ignore our own feet of clay. Made me think of the way the old Byrds put it...