Love Making Sense: The Concept, The Reflection

Michael Jackson was not that crazy ... back in 1988. Okay, the king of pop popped off the deep end when he held his child over a balcony. He definitely left the building when Ed Bradley interviewed him on 60 Minutes (and subsquently looked at him as though he were insane per Michael's responses).

Okay, he was gone before '88 when he started his friendship with Emmanuel Lewis and the animals. But in '88, when he dropped the Bad album, Jackson held his own and his brain together for at least five minutes.

I'll say that for one reason only, the song Man in the Mirror. These words changed lives, and they embody where this story begins and ends. I'm not going to post all of the lyrics, but here's a link (click here). Here's the chorus:

I'm Starting With The Man InThe Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself, AndThen Make A Change

This is where I found myself, in my reflection. Remember that poem I wrote entitled A Struggle From Within? That's me explaining how I found myself.

Most of us think our struggle in this world is with outside forces, but it's really from within ourselves. No one makes you put down or wane off of the cigarette, beer, cheeseburger and shake or extra-marital affair but you. People help you along the way, but you make the decision yourself solely.

It's that process that causes these struggles from within.

It's when you realize that no one can create growth or change, how ever you perceive it, for you but yourself that you start the honest inventory of your character within. You change your ways when you see that your biggest problem, more often than not, is the reflection looking back at you in the mirror.

It makes you wonder if that angel and devil versions of you over your shoulders really do exist? When you look at your reflection or within, you should definitely see the angel, and his or her ways. (This is just a random joke, but I don't know who or what Michael Jackson sees when he looks in the mirror now.)

Need proof? Within the first chapters of Genesis, it says that God created man in his own image. Some versions say God created man in his own likeness or reflection (I'll explain this later, it's pretty deep). Flip a few hundred pages ahead to 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13 (The chapter of love):

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.

I don't know if you find that to be lifting, but I do. It says that when you find yourself, you'll be able to see the reflection of yourself clearly and give up childish (or selfish) ways - and start giving of yourself as is expected. That's extremely powerful.

Now, back to Michael. I'm hoping he has put up his childish things finally. But who knows. All we can do is pray and hope that he again finds the Man in the Mirror, as we start that same search.