Hat tip to Angela Cave over on the Catholic News Service blog for finding an article Michael Jackson wrote for Belief.net in 2000.
It really is worth a read. Pain is evident in what he wrote. At age 8 and 9 as the Jackson Five were just emerging, Jackson writes, "at that time what I wanted more than anything else were the two things that make childhood the most wondrous years of life, namely, playtime and a feeling of freedom." He wanted build a tree house and go to a roller skating party, he said. "But very early on, this became impossible."
Sundays were my day for "Pioneering," the term used for the missionary work that Jehovah's Witnesses do. We would spend the day in the suburbs of Southern California, going door to door or making the rounds of a shopping mall, distributing our Watchtower magazine. I continued my pioneering work for years and years after my career had been launched.
... When I was young, my whole family attended church together in Indiana. ... When circumstances made it increasingly complex for me to attend, I was comforted by the belief that God exists in my heart, and in music and in beauty, not only in a building. But I still miss the sense of community that I felt there -- I miss the friends and the people who treated me like I was simply one of them. Simply human. Sharing a day with God.
Fellow NCR Today blogger Sr. Rose Pacatte wrore about Hollywood Mourning and the Austraila Jeusit magazine Eureka Street has a quite fine refleciton, Michael Jackson's tragic gift, by Tim Kroenert the assistant editor.
