Planet Bahá'í

Last week I watched Michael Jackson's memorial service with my three younger daughters.  The oldest, Andrea, was on the Standing Rock Reservation doing a week of volunteer veterinary service, or she would have been watching, too.  (She asked us to record it for her, though, and I suppose that when she returns we'll all get together and watch it again.)  I've found Michael Jackson's death to be strangely affecting, perhaps because I feel as though a piece of my own youth is gone, for I was one of those thirteen-year-old Jackson 5 fans.  Perhaps I'm just stunned by the death of someone my own age.  We wept along with eleven-year-old Paris Jackson, whose pain I understand—I lost my mother at the same age, and my father at twenty-two.  The apex of Michael Jackson's career came simultaneously with Dale's declaration.  Along with everything else he was and did, Michael Jackson is a sort of backdrop to our family's baby steps as Bahá'ís.  Remember with me now:

• Jocelyn's baby calendar, a gift from a member of our Bahá'í community, records "Michael Jackson's Thriller album" in the "Top Songs When Baby Was Born" section.

• Taking the Sunday School kids to the House of Worship in Wilmette for a Holy Day celebration in the spring of 1984, and listening to lots of teenybopper talk about Michael Jackson in the McDonald's when we stopped for lunch.

• Helping Andrea (who was 7 at the time) hang a HUGE poster of Michael Jackson (the one with him in the yellow vest) on her bedroom wall, and then, for a while, being startled every time I came down the hall and caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye.  We also had to keep re-taping the poster, which was heavy and fell down at every opportunity.

• Dale chaperoned a group of students from our Sunday School on a trip to Louhelen for a weekend program.  They sang "We Are The World" halfway from the northwestern suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, to Davison, Michigan, only giving up around 4:30 A.M. (they left around two) when they finally fell asleep.  Imagine driving through the night for a couple hours with four teenagers stuck on one song!

• One of the first large Bahá'í functions Dale attended was an Ayyám-i-Há party hosted by the Elgin Bahá'í community.  It was held at a dance studio, and the member of the community who was also involved with the school of dance took the kids into the big practice room with the barre and the mirrors, where they danced the night away, particularly to Michael Jackson's song "Beat It".  Andrea can remember her brother Geoffrey and the instructor really getting into all the moves!

How many of us have similar memories?

Strange things began to happen to Michael Jackson along the way, but in all fairness I must point out that there's never been a true artist who was entirely what the rest of the world would call "sane".  It just doesn't go with the territory.  The divine spark that is genius propels one into a different realm.  Further, the visibility demanded by fame denies one's need for privacy and solitude.  Is it any wonder that so many great artists become crotchety recluses?  The constant "tinkering" with his appearance, however necessary as the result of a broken nose, skin grafts following third-degree burns, vitiligo, and the like, sometimes seemed to me not so much repair as an attempt to transcend categories—after all, what is white/black/male/female?  Aren't they all simply manifestations of the physical world that have very little to do with spiritual realities?  I'm also compelled to state here for the record that I don't believe he ever did anything untoward with those kids at the Neverland Ranch—innocent until proven guilty is right, and $$$$$ are a great motivator.  (I could also tell you about a trial I once sat on the jury for, that was thrown out of court after the prosecution discovered that the kid had lied, but that would take us rather far from the topic.)  Bahá'u'lláh did remind us all about justice, in that Hidden Word:

O son of spirit! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.

(Bahá'u'lláh, The Hidden Words, Arabic 2)

So the world stood still for a couple of hours, to lay Michael Jackson to rest.  And I think that's proper and fitting.  He was a gifted musician and dancer; a composer of "popular songs" whose lyrics showed that he had put considerable thought into the world's condition and the operations of right and wrong, good and evil.  For a short while we forgot about the myriad troubles of our time and concentrated on something fine that had slipped from our grasp underappreciated.  And—just in case you missed it—during the final song presented at his memorial, "Heal the World" (from the 1991 album Dangerous, and for which everyone joined in), symbols of all the world's major religions appeared, including, not just one, but four nine-pointed stars.

He belongs to all of us.  Thank you, Michael.  Go in peace.

And now concerning thy question regarding the soul of man and its survival after death. Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God, in a state and condition which neither the revolution of ages and centuries, nor the changes and chances of this world, can alter. It will endure as long as the Kingdom of God, His sovereignty, His dominion and power will endure. It will manifest the signs of God and His attributes, and will reveal His loving kindness and bounty. The movement of My Pen is stilled when it attempteth to befittingly describe the loftiness and glory of so exalted a station. The honor with which the Hand of Mercy will invest the soul is such as no tongue can adequately reveal, nor any other earthly agency describe.

(Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, LXXXI)

O my God! O Thou forgiver of sins, bestower of gifts, dispeller of afflictions!

Verily, I beseech Thee to forgive the sins of such as have abandoned the physical garment and have ascended to the spiritual world.

O my Lord! Purify them from trespasses, dispel their sorrows, and change their darkness into light. Cause them to enter the garden of happiness, cleanse them with the most pure water, and grant them to behold Thy splendors on the loftiest mount.

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'í Prayers, "For the Departed")