Did You Ever Stop To Notice?

Earth Song by Michael Jackson

Some people speak to me. Out of the masses, out of the ages, certain souls take a step toward me and gaze into my soul, and suddenly I realize I recognize them, I know them. I don't choose these people. They just come to me, and once they do, there is no looking back.

Michael Jackson is one of these people for me. And now for the laundry list of disclaimers: I know he was weird, I know about the plastic surgery, I know about the allegations, I know his career peaked in the mid-1980s and never really returned, I know, I know, I know. I'm fully aware that he led a strange life, a broken life, but none of this changes the fact that when I encountered him on the path of my life, I froze in my tracks and stared, because I knew him. I just did. When I watch his interviews, read his writings, listen to his music, his voice slips in among my heart strings and tangles them, tugging gently. I understand Michael Jackson.

One of the things I understand most is his ability to feel the pain of the world. If you have open eyes, and an open heart, the sad truth is, you are destined to know pain. If you ever stop to notice, you will see that the universe itself is broken. Some nights it just swoops down on me and holds me, this raw, empathic awareness. I can feel it, the crying, the screaming, the trees falling, the guns firing. The world is so beautiful, but so broken. And I just want the beauty to return. I just want everything to be whole again.

This song, and the music video, speak to this desire. I honestly can't hear the chorus without getting chills. I used to walk around my land, on windy days when the clouds were racing across heaven in the high golden light, and let this music reverberate through my headphones, filling my consciousness.
 

This song explores painful territory, to be sure, but in the end, it is a song of hope. I believe, as Michael did, in the ultimate triumph of good over evil. I do believe that healing and restoration will come. I believe it will sweep the globe like a lightning storm, and the healing rain will fail, and the dreams we've abandoned since childhood will come shuddering out of the depths of the earth and splash over us like floodwaters.