Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.

It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself, which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single

moment before starting to improve the world.

- Anne Frank

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.

You are able to say to yourself, “I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

At the center of your being you have the answer;

you know who you are and you know what you want.

Dona Nobis Pacem…

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.

“As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him…

Prejudices are what fools use for reason…

Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing

Now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips like a puff of summer wind

Without notice, our dear love can escape our doting embrace

Sing our songs among the stars and and walk our dances across the face of the moon

In the instant we learn that Michael is gone we know nothing

No clocks can tell our time and no oceans can rush our tides

With the abrupt absence of our treasure

Though we our many, each of us is achingly alone

Piercingly alone

Only when we confess our confusion can we remember that he was a gift to us and we did have him

He came to us from the Creator, trailing creativity in abundance

Despite the anguish of life he was sheathed in mother love and family love and survived and did not more than that

He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style

We had him

Whether we knew who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his

We had him

Beautiful, delighting our eyes

He raked his hat slant over his brow and took a pose on his toes for all of us and we laughed and stomped our feet for him

We were enchanted with his passion because he held nothing

He gave us all he had been given

Today in Tokyo, beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana’s Blackstar Square, in

Johannesburg, in Pittsburgh, in Birmingham, Alabama and Birmingham England, we are 
missing Michael Jackson

But we do know that we had him

And we are the world.

With dedication to his mom who loved him unconditionally and appreciated his love and warm snuggles and willingness to pose when a photo op presented itself …

“Some people come into our lives and quickly go.
Some people move our souls to dance.
They awaken us to new understanding
With the passing whisper of their wisdom.
Some people make the sky
More beautiful to gaze upon.
They stay in our lives for awhile,
Leave footprints on our hearts
And we are never, ever the same.”