迈克尔・杰克逊牛津英语励志演讲稿
heal the children heal the world
拯救童拯救世界——流行音乐王迈克尔·杰克逊
in a worldlled with hate we must still dare to hope keep hope alive in a worldlled with anger we must still dare to comfort in a worldlled with despair we must still dare to dream and in a worldlled with distrust we must still dare to believe 世界充满仇恨勇憧憬希永存世界充满愤怒敢安慰世界充满绝勇梦想世界充满猜疑然敢信
heal the kids – oxford speech
oxford university march XX by michael jackson
thank you thank you dear friends from the bottom of my heart for such a loving and spirited welcome and thank you mr president for your kind invitation to me which i am so honored to accept i also want to express a special thanks to you shmuley who for 11 years served as rabbi here at oxford you and i have been working so hard to form heal the kids as well as writing our book about childlike qualities and in all of our efforts you have been such a supportive and loving friend and i would also like to thank toba friedman our director of operations at heal the kids who is returning tonight to the alma mater where she served as a marshall scholar as well as marilyn piels another central member of our heal the kids team
i am humbled to be lecturing in a place that has previously been filled by such notable figures as mother theresa albert einstein ronald reagan robert kennedy and malcolm x i＇ve even heard that kermit the frog has made an appearance here and i＇ve always felt a kinship with kermit＇s message that it＇s not easy being green i＇m sure he didn＇t find it any easier being up here than i do
as i looked around oxford today i couldn＇t help but be aware of the majesty and grandeur of this great institution not to mention the brilliance of the great and gifted minds that have roamed these streets for centuries the walls of oxford have not only housed the greatest philosophical and scientific geniuses – they have also ushered forth some of the most cherished creators of children＇s literature from jrr tolkien to cs lewis today i was allowed to hobble into the dining hall in christ church to see lewis carroll＇s alice in wonderland immortalized in the stained glass windows and even one of my own fellow americans the beloved dr seuss graced these halls and then went on to leave his mark on the imaginations of millions of children throughout the world
i suppose i should start by listing my qualifications to speak before you this evening friends i do not claim to have the academic expertise of other speakers who have addressed this hall just as they could lay little claim at being adept at the moonwalk – and you know einstein in particular was really terrible at that
but i do have a claim to having experienced more places and cultures than most people will ever see human knowledge consists not only of libraries of parchment and ink – it is also comprised of the volumes of knowledge that are written on the human heart chiseled on the human soul and engraved on the human psyche and friends i have encountered so much in this relatively short life of mine that i still cannot believe i am chiseled only 42 i often tell shmuley that in soul years i＇m sure that i＇m at least 80 – and tonight i even walk like i＇m 80 so please harken to my message because what i have to tell you tonight can bring healing to humanity and healing to our planet
through the grace of god i have been fortunate to have achieved many of my artistic and professional aspirations realized early in my lifetime but these friends are accomplishments and accomplishments alone are not synonymous with who i am indeed the cheery fiveyearold who belted out rockin＇ robin and ben to adoring crowds was not indicative of the boy behind the smile
tonight i come before you less as an icon of pop (whatever that means anyway) and more as an icon of a generation a generation that no longer knows what it means to be children
all of us are products of our childhood but i am the product of a lack of a childhood an absence of that precious and wondrous age when we frolic playfully without a care in the world basking in the adoration of parents and relatives where our biggest concern is studying for that big spelling test come monday morning
those of you who are familiar with the jackson five know that i began performing at the tender age of five and that ever since then i haven＇t stopped dancing or singing but while performing and making music undoubtedly remain as some of my greatest joys when i was young i wanted more than anything else to be a typical little boy i wanted to build tree houses have water balloon fights and play hide and seek with my friends but fate had it otherwise and all i could do was envy the laughter and playtime that seemed to be going on all around me
there was no respite from my professional life but on sundays i would go pioneering the term used for the missionary work that jehovah＇s witnesses do and it was then that i was able to see the magic of other people＇s childhood
since i was already a celebrity i would have to don a disguise of fat suit wig beard and glasses and we would spend the day in the suburbs of southern california going doortodoor or making the rounds of shopping malls distributing our watchtower magazine i loved to set foot in all those regular suburban houses and catch sight of the shag rugs and lazboy armchairs with kids playing monopoly and grandmas babysitting and all those wonderful ordinary and starry scenes of everyday life many i know would argue that these things seem like no big deal but to me they were mesmerizing
i used to think that i was unique in feeling that i was without a childhood i believed that indeed there were only a handful with whom i could share those feelings when i recently met with shirley temple black the great child star of the 1930s and 40s we said nothing to each other at first we simply cried together for she could share a pain with me that only others like my close friends elizabeth taylor and mccauley culkin know
i do not tell you this to gain your sympathy but to impress upon you my first important point it is not just hollywood child stars that have suffered from a nonexistent childhood today it＇s a universal calamity a global catastrophe childhood has become the great casualty of modernday living all around us we are producing scores of kids who have not had the joy who have not been accorded the right who have not been allowed the freedom or knowing what it＇s like to be a kid
today children are constantly encouraged to grow up faster as if this period known as childhood is a burdensome stage to be endured and ushered through as swiftly as possible and on that subject i am certainly one of the world＇s greatest experts
ours is a generation that has witnessed the abrogation of the parentchild covenant psychologists are publishing libraries of books detailing the destructive effects of denying one＇s children the unconditional love that is so necessary to the healthy development of their minds and character and because of all the neglect too many of our kids have essentially to raise themselves they are growing more distant from their parents grandparents and other family members as all around us the indestructible bond that once glued together the generations unravels
this violation has bred a new generation generation o let us call it that has now picked up the torch from generation x the o stands for a generation that has everything on the outside – wealth success fancy clothing and fancy cars but an aching emptiness on the inside that cavity in our chests that barrenness at our core that void in our centre is the place where the heart once beat and which love once occupied
and it＇s not just the kids who are suffering it＇s the parents as well for the more we cultivate littleadults in kids＇bodies the more removed we ourselves become from our own childlike qualities and there is so much about being a child that is worth retaining in adult life
love ladies and gentlemen is the human family＇s most precious legacy its richest bequest its golden inheritance and it is a treasure that is handed down from one generation to another previous ages may not have had the wealth we enjoy their houses may have lacked electricity and they squeezed their many kids into small homes without central heating but those homes had no darkness nor were they cold they were lit bright with the glow of love and they were warmed snugly by the very heat of the human heart parents undistracted by the lust for luxury and status accorded their children primacy in their lives
as you all know our two countries broke from each other over what thomas jefferson referred to as certain inalienable rights and while we americans and british might dispute the justice of his claims what has never been in dispute is that children have certain inalienable rights and the gradual erosion of those rights has led to scores of children worldwide being denied the joys and security of childhood
i would therefore like to propose tonight that we install in every home a children＇s universal bill of rights the tenets of which are
1 the right to be loved without having to earn it
2 the right to be protected without having to deserve it
3 the right to feel valuable even if you came into the world with nothing
4 the right to be listened to without having to be interesting
5 the right to be read a bedtime story without having to compete with the evening news
6 the right to an education without having to dodge bullets at schools
7 the right to be thought of as adorable – (even if you have a face that only a mother could love)
friends the foundation of all human knowledge the beginning of human consciousness must be that each and every one of us is an object of love before you know if you have red hair or brown before you know if you are black or white before you know of what religion you are a part you have to know that you are loved
about twelve years ago when i was just about to start my bad tour a little boy came with his parents to visit me at home in california he was dying of cancer and he told me how much he loved my music and me his parents told me that he wasn＇t going to live that any day he could just go and i said to him look i am going to be coming to your town in kansas to open my tour in three months i want you to come to the show i am going to give you this jacket that i wore in one of my videos his eyes lit up and he said you are gonna give it to me i said yeah but you have to promise that you will wear it to the show i was trying to make him hold on i said when you come to the show i want to see you in this jacket and in this glove and i gave him one of my rhinestone gloves – and i never usually give the rhinestone gloves away and he was just in heaven
but maybe he was too close to heaven because when i came to his town he had already died and they had buried him in the glove and jacket he was just 10 years old god knows i know that he tried his best to hold on but at least when he died he knew that he was loved not only by his parents but even by me a near stranger i also loved him and with all of that love he knew that he didn＇t come into this world alone and he certainly didn＇t leave it alone
if you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same then everything that happens in between can he dealt with a professor may degrade you but you will not feel degraded a boss may crush you but you will not be crushed a corporate gladiator might vanquish you but you will still triumph how could any of them truly prevail in pulling you down for you know that you are an object worthy of love the rest is just packaging
but if you don＇t have that memory of being loved you are condemned to search the world for something to fill you up but no matter how much money you make or how famous you become you will still fell empty what you are really searching for is unconditional love unqualified acceptance and that was the one thing that was denied to you at birth
friends let me paint a picture for you here is a typical day in america – six youths under the age of 20 will commit suicide 12 children under the age of 20 will die from firearms – remember this is a day not a year – 399 kids will be arrested for drug abuse 1352 babies will be born to teen mothers this is happening in one of the richest most developed countries in the history of the world
yes in my country there is an epidemic of violence that parallels no other industrialized nation these are the ways young people in america express their hurt and their anger but don＇t think that there is not the same pain and anguish among their counterparts in the united kingdom studies in this country show that every single hour three teenagers in the uk inflict harm upon themselves often by cutting or burning their bodies or taking an overdose this is how they have chosen to cope with the pain of neglect and emotional agony
in britain as many as 20 of families will only sit down and have dinner together once a year once a year and what about the timehonored tradition of reading your kid a bedtime story research from the 1980s showed that children who are read to had far greater literacy and significantly outperformed their peers at school and yet less than 33 of british children ages two to eight have a regular bedtime story read to them you may not think much of that until you take into account that 75 of their parents did have that bedtime story when they were that age
clearly we do not have to ask ourselves where all of this pain anger and violent behavior comes from it is selfevident that children are thundering against the neglect quaking against the indifference and crying out just to be noticed the various child protection agencies in the us say that millions of children are victims of maltreatment in the form of neglect in the average year yes neglect in rich homes privileged homes wired to the hilt with every electronic gadget homes where parents come home but they＇re not really home because their heads are still at the office and their kids well their kids just make do with whatever emotional crumbs they get and you don＇t get much from endless tv computer games and videos
these hard cold numbers which for me wrench the soul and shake the spirit should indicate to you why i have devoted so much of my time and resources into making our new heal the kids initiative a colossal success
our goal is simple – to recreate the parentchild bond renew its promise and light the way forward for all the beautiful children who are destined one day to walk this earth
but since this is my first public lecture and you have so warmly welcomed me into your hearts i feel that i want to tell you more we each have our own story and in that sense statistics can become personal
they say that parenting is like dancing you take one step your child takes another i have discovered that getting parents to rededicate themselves to their children is only half the story the other half is preparing the children to reaccept their parents
when i was very young i remember that we had this crazy mutt of a dog named black girl a mix of wolf and retriever not only wasn＇t she much of a guard dog she was such a scared and nervous thing that it is a wonder she did not pass out every time a truck rumbled by or a thunderstorm swept through indiana my sister janet and i gave that dog so much love but we never really won back the sense of trust that had been stolen from her by her previous owner we knew he used to beat her we didn＇t know with what but whatever it was it was enough to suck the spirit right out of that dog
a lot of kids today are hurt puppies who have weaned themselves off the need for love they couldn＇t care less about their parents left to their own devices they cherish their independence they have moved on and have left their parents behind
then there are the far worse cases of children who harbor animosity and resentment toward their parents so that any overture that their parents might undertake would be thrown forcefully back in their face
tonight i don＇t want any of us to make this mistake that＇s why i＇m calling upon all the world＇s children – beginning with all of us here tonight – to forgive our parents if we felt neglected forgive them and teach them how to love again
you probably weren＇t surprised to hear that i did not have an idyllic childhood the strain and tension that exists in my relationship with my own father is well documented my father is a tough man and he pushed my brothers and me hard from the earliest age to be the best performers we could be
he had great difficulty showing affection he never really told me he loved me and he never really complimented me either if i did a great show he would tell me it was a good show and if i did an ok show he told me it was a lousy show
he seemed intent above all else on making us a commercial success and at that he was more than adept my father was a managerial genius and my brothers and i owe our professional success in no small measure to the forceful way that he pushed us he trained me as a showman and under his guidance i couldn＇t miss a step
but what i really wanted was a dad i wanted a father who showed me love and my father never did that he never said i love you while looking me straight in the eye he never played a game with me he never gave me a piggyback ride he never threw a pillow at me or a water balloon
but i remember once when i was about four years old there was a little carnival and he picked me up and put me on a pony it was a tiny gesture probably something he forgot five minutes later but because of that moment i have this special place in my heart for him because that＇s how kids are the little things mean so much to them and for me that one moment meant everything i only experienced it that one time but it made me feel really good about him and the world
but now i am a father myself and one day i was thinking about my own children prince and paris and how i wanted them to think of me when they grow up to be sure i would like them to remember how i always wanted them with me wherever i went how i always tried to put them before everything else but there are also challenges in their lives because my kids are stalked by paparazzi they can＇t always go to a park or a movie with me
so what if they grow older and resent me and how my choices impacted their youth why weren＇t we given an average childhood like all the other kids they might ask and at that moment i pray that my children will give me the benefit of the doubt that they will say to themselves our daddy did the best he could given the unique circumstances that he faced he may not have been perfect but he was a warm and decent man who tried to give us all the love in the world
i hope that they will always focus on the positive things on the sacrifices i willingly made for them and not criticize the things they had to give up or the errors i＇ve made and will certainly continue to make in raising them for we have all been someone＇s child and we know that despite the very best of plans and efforts mistakes will always occur that＇s just being human
and when i think about this of how i hope that my children will not judge me unkindly and will forgive my shortcomings i am forced to think of my own father and despite my earlier denials i am forced to admit that me must have loved me he did love me and i know that
there were little things that showed it when i was a kid i had a real sweet tooth – we all did my favorite food was glazed doughnuts and my father knew that so every few weeks i would come downstairs in the morning and there on the kitchen counter was a bag of glazed doughnuts – no note no explanation – just the doughnuts it was like santa claus
sometimes i would think about staying up late at night so i could see him leave them there but just like with santa claus i didn＇t want to ruin the magic for fear that he would never do it again my father had to leave them secretly at night so as no one might catch him with his guard down he was scared of human emotion he didn＇t understand it or know how to deal with it but he did know doughnuts
and when i allow the floodgates to open up there are other memories that come rushing back memories of other tiny gestures however imperfect that showed that he did what he could so tonight rather than focusing on what my father didn＇t do i want to focus on all the things he did do and on his own personal challenges i want to stop judging him
i have started reflecting on the fact that my father grew up in the south in a very poor family he came of age during the depression and his own father who struggled to feed his children showed little affection towards his family and raised my father and his siblings with an iron fist who could have imagined what it was like to grow up a poor black man in the south robbed of dignity bereft of hope struggling to become a man in a world that saw my father as subordinate i was the first black artist to be played on mtv and i remember how big a deal it was even then and that was in the 80s
my father moved to indiana and had a large family of his own working long hours in the steel mills work that kills the lungs and humbles the spirit all to support his family is it any wonder that he found it difficult to expose his feelings is it any mystery that he hardened his heart that he raised the emotional ramparts and most of all is it any wonder why he pushed his sons so hard to succeed as performers so that they could be saved from what he knew to be a life of indignity and poverty
i have begun to see that even my father＇s harshness was a kind of love an imperfect love to be sure but love nonetheless he pushed me because he loved me because he wanted no man ever to look down at his offspring
and now with time rather than bitterness i feel blessing in the place of anger i have found absolution and in the place of revenge i have found reconciliation and my initial fury has slowly given way to forgiveness
almost a decade ago i founded a charity called heal the world the title was something i felt inside me little did i know as shmuley later pointed out that those two words form the cornerstone of old testament prophecy do i really believe that we can heal this world that is riddled with war and genocide even today and do i really think that we can heal our children the same children who can enter their schools with guns and hatred and shoot down their classmates like they did at columbine or children who can beat a defenseless toddler to death like the tragic story of jamie bulger of course i do or i wouldn＇t be here tonight
but it all begins with forgiveness because to heal the world we first have to heal ourselves and to heal the kids we first have to heal the child within each and every one of us as an adult and as a parent i realize that i cannot be a whole human being nor a parent capable of unconditional love until i put to rest the ghosts of my own childhood
and that＇s what i＇m asking all of us to do tonight live up to the fifth of the ten commandments honor your parents by not judging them give them the benefit of the doubt
that is why i want to forgive my father and to stop judging him i want to forgive my father because i want a father and this is the only one that i＇ve got i want the weight of my past lifted from my shoulders and i want to be free to step into a new relationship with my father for the rest of my life unhindered by the goblins of the past
in a world filled with hate we must still dare to hope in a world filled with anger we must still dare to comfort in a world filled with despair we must still dare to dream and in a world filled with distrust we must still dare to believe
to all of you tonight who feel let down by your parents i ask you to let down your disappointment to all of you tonight who feel cheated by your fathers or mothers i ask you not to cheat yourself further and to all of you who wish to push your parents away i ask you to extend you hand to them instead i am asking you i am asking myself to give our parents the gift of unconditional love so that they too may learn how to love from us their children so that love will finally be restored to a desolate and lonely world
shmuley once mentioned to me an ancient biblical prophecy which says that a new world and a new time would come when the hearts of the parents would be restored through the hearts of their children my friends we are that world we are those children
mahatma gandhi said the weak can never forgive forgiveness is the attribute of the strong tonight be strong beyond being strong rise to the greatest challenge of all – to restore that broken covenant we must all overcome whatever crippling effects our childhoods may have had on our lives and in the words of jesse jackson forgive each other redeem each other and move on
this call for forgiveness may not result in oprah moments the world over with thousands of children making up with their parents but it will at least be a start and we＇ll all be so much happier as a result
and so ladies and gentlemen i conclude my remarks tonight with faith joy and excitement
from this day forward may a new song be heard
let that new song be the sound of children laughing
let that new song be the sound of children playing
let that new song be the sound of children singing
and let that new song be the sound of parents listening
together let us create a symphony of hearts marveling at the miracle of our children and basking in the beauty of love
let us heal the world and blight its pain
and may we all make beautiful music together
god bless you and i love you
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heal the children heal the world
拯救童拯救世界——流行音乐王迈克尔·杰克逊
in a worldlled with hate we must still dare to hope keep hope alive in a worldlled with anger we must still dare to comfort in a worldlled with despair we must still dare to dream and in a worldlled with distrust we must still dare to believe 世界充满仇恨勇憧憬希永存世界充满愤怒敢安慰世界充满绝勇梦想世界充满猜疑然敢信
heal the kids – oxford speech
oxford university march XX by michael jackson
thank you thank you dear friends from the bottom of my heart for such a loving and spirited welcome and thank you mr president for your kind invitation to me which i am so honored to accept i also want to express a special thanks to you shmuley who for 11 years served as rabbi here at oxford you and i have been working so hard to form heal the kids as well as writing our book about childlike qualities and in all of our efforts you have been such a supportive and loving friend and i would also like to thank toba friedman our director of operations at heal the kids who is returning tonight to the alma mater where she served as a marshall scholar as well as marilyn piels another central member of our heal the kids team
i am humbled to be lecturing in a place that has previously been filled by such notable figures as mother theresa albert einstein ronald reagan robert kennedy and malcolm x i＇ve even heard that kermit the frog has made an appearance here and i＇ve always felt a kinship with kermit＇s message that it＇s not easy being green i＇m sure he didn＇t find it any easier being up here than i do
as i looked around oxford today i couldn＇t help but be aware of the majesty and grandeur of this great institution not to mention the brilliance of the great and gifted minds that have roamed these streets for centuries the walls of oxford have not only housed the greatest philosophical and scientific geniuses – they have also ushered forth some of the most cherished creators of children＇s literature from jrr tolkien to cs lewis today i was allowed to hobble into the dining hall in christ church to see lewis carroll＇s alice in wonderland immortalized in the stained glass windows and even one of my own fellow americans the beloved dr seuss graced these halls and then went on to leave his mark on the imaginations of millions of children throughout the world
i suppose i should start by listing my qualifications to speak before you this evening friends i do not claim to have the academic expertise of other speakers who have addressed this hall just as they could lay little claim at being adept at the moonwalk – and you know einstein in particular was really terrible at that
but i do have a claim to having experienced more places and cultures than most people will ever see human knowledge consists not only of libraries of parchment and ink – it is also comprised of the volumes of knowledge that are written on the human heart chiseled on the human soul and engraved on the human psyche and friends i have encountered so much in this relatively short life of mine that i still cannot believe i am chiseled only 42 i often tell shmuley that in soul years i＇m sure that i＇m at least 80 – and tonight i even walk like i＇m 80 so please harken to my message because what i have to tell you tonight can bring healing to humanity and healing to our planet
through the grace of god i have been fortunate to have achieved many of my artistic and professional aspirations realized early in my lifetime but these friends are accomplishments and accomplishments alone are not synonymous with who i am indeed the cheery fiveyearold who belted out rockin＇ robin and ben to adoring crowds was not indicative of the boy behind the smile
tonight i come before you less as an icon of pop (whatever that means anyway) and more as an icon of a generation a generation that no longer knows what it means to be children
all of us are products of our childhood but i am the product of a lack of a childhood an absence of that precious and wondrous age when we frolic playfully without a care in the world basking in the adoration of parents and relatives where our biggest concern is studying for that big spelling test come monday morning
those of you who are familiar with the jackson five know that i began performing at the tender age of five and that ever since then i haven＇t stopped dancing or singing but while performing and making music undoubtedly remain as some of my greatest joys when i was young i wanted more than anything else to be a typical little boy i wanted to build tree houses have water balloon fights and play hide and seek with my friends but fate had it otherwise and all i could do was envy the laughter and playtime that seemed to be going on all around me
there was no respite from my professional life but on sundays i would go pioneering the term used for the missionary work that jehovah＇s witnesses do and it was then that i was able to see the magic of other people＇s childhood
since i was already a celebrity i would have to don a disguise of fat suit wig beard and glasses and we would spend the day in the suburbs of southern california going doortodoor or making the rounds of shopping malls distributing our watchtower magazine i loved to set foot in all those regular suburban houses and catch sight of the shag rugs and lazboy armchairs with kids playing monopoly and grandmas babysitting and all those wonderful ordinary and starry scenes of everyday life many i know would argue that these things seem like no big deal but to me they were mesmerizing
i used to think that i was unique in feeling that i was without a childhood i believed that indeed there were only a handful with whom i could share those feelings when i recently met with shirley temple black the great child star of the 1930s and 40s we said nothing to each other at first we simply cried together for she could share a pain with me that only others like my close friends elizabeth taylor and mccauley culkin know
i do not tell you this to gain your sympathy but to impress upon you my first important point it is not just hollywood child stars that have suffered from a nonexistent childhood today it＇s a universal calamity a global catastrophe childhood has become the great casualty of modernday living all around us we are producing scores of kids who have not had the joy who have not been accorded the right who have not been allowed the freedom or knowing what it＇s like to be a kid
today children are constantly encouraged to grow up faster as if this period known as childhood is a burdensome stage to be endured and ushered through as swiftly as possible and on that subject i am certainly one of the world＇s greatest experts
ours is a generation that has witnessed the abrogation of the parentchild covenant psychologists are publishing libraries of books detailing the destructive effects of denying one＇s children the unconditional love that is so necessary to the healthy development of their minds and character and because of all the neglect too many of our kids have essentially to raise themselves they are growing more distant from their parents grandparents and other family members as all around us the indestructible bond that once glued together the generations unravels
this violation has bred a new generation generation o let us call it that has now picked up the torch from generation x the o stands for a generation that has everything on the outside – wealth success fancy clothing and fancy cars but an aching emptiness on the inside that cavity in our chests that barrenness at our core that void in our centre is the place where the heart once beat and which love once occupied
and it＇s not just the kids who are suffering it＇s the parents as well for the more we cultivate littleadults in kids＇bodies the more removed we ourselves become from our own childlike qualities and there is so much about being a child that is worth retaining in adult life
love ladies and gentlemen is the human family＇s most precious legacy its richest bequest its golden inheritance and it is a treasure that is handed down from one generation to another previous ages may not have had the wealth we enjoy their houses may have lacked electricity and they squeezed their many kids into small homes without central heating but those homes had no darkness nor were they cold they were lit bright with the glow of love and they were warmed snugly by the very heat of the human heart parents undistracted by the lust for luxury and status accorded their children primacy in their lives
as you all know our two countries broke from each other over what thomas jefferson referred to as certain inalienable rights and while we americans and british might dispute the justice of his claims what has never been in dispute is that children have certain inalienable rights and the gradual erosion of those rights has led to scores of children worldwide being denied the joys and security of childhood
i would therefore like to propose tonight that we install in every home a children＇s universal bill of rights the tenets of which are
1 the right to be loved without having to earn it
2 the right to be protected without having to deserve it
3 the right to feel valuable even if you came into the world with nothing
4 the right to be listened to without having to be interesting
5 the right to be read a bedtime story without having to compete with the evening news
6 the right to an education without having to dodge bullets at schools
7 the right to be thought of as adorable – (even if you have a face that only a mother could love)
friends the foundation of all human knowledge the beginning of human consciousness must be that each and every one of us is an object of love before you know if you have red hair or brown before you know if you are black or white before you know of what religion you are a part you have to know that you are loved
about twelve years ago when i was just about to start my bad tour a little boy came with his parents to visit me at home in california he was dying of cancer and he told me how much he loved my music and me his parents told me that he wasn＇t going to live that any day he could just go and i said to him look i am going to be coming to your town in kansas to open my tour in three months i want you to come to the show i am going to give you this jacket that i wore in one of my videos his eyes lit up and he said you are gonna give it to me i said yeah but you have to promise that you will wear it to the show i was trying to make him hold on i said when you come to the show i want to see you in this jacket and in this glove and i gave him one of my rhinestone gloves – and i never usually give the rhinestone gloves away and he was just in heaven
but maybe he was too close to heaven because when i came to his town he had already died and they had buried him in the glove and jacket he was just 10 years old god knows i know that he tried his best to hold on but at least when he died he knew that he was loved not only by his parents but even by me a near stranger i also loved him and with all of that love he knew that he didn＇t come into this world alone and he certainly didn＇t leave it alone
if you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same then everything that happens in between can he dealt with a professor may degrade you but you will not feel degraded a boss may crush you but you will not be crushed a corporate gladiator might vanquish you but you will still triumph how could any of them truly prevail in pulling you down for you know that you are an object worthy of love the rest is just packaging
but if you don＇t have that memory of being loved you are condemned to search the world for something to fill you up but no matter how much money you make or how famous you become you will still fell empty what you are really searching for is unconditional love unqualified acceptance and that was the one thing that was denied to you at birth
friends let me paint a picture for you here is a typical day in america – six youths under the age of 20 will commit suicide 12 children under the age of 20 will die from firearms – remember this is a day not a year – 399 kids will be arrested for drug abuse 1352 babies will be born to teen mothers this is happening in one of the richest most developed countries in the history of the world
yes in my country there is an epidemic of violence that parallels no other industrialized nation these are the ways young people in america express their hurt and their anger but don＇t think that there is not the same pain and anguish among their counterparts in the united kingdom studies in this country show that every single hour three teenagers in the uk inflict harm upon themselves often by cutting or burning their bodies or taking an overdose this is how they have chosen to cope with the pain of neglect and emotional agony
in britain as many as 20 of families will only sit down and have dinner together once a year once a year and what about the timehonored tradition of reading your kid a bedtime story research from the 1980s showed that children who are read to had far greater literacy and significantly outperformed their peers at school and yet less than 33 of british children ages two to eight have a regular bedtime story read to them you may not think much of that until you take into account that 75 of their parents did have that bedtime story when they were that age
clearly we do not have to ask ourselves where all of this pain anger and violent behavior comes from it is selfevident that children are thundering against the neglect quaking against the indifference and crying out just to be noticed the various child protection agencies in the us say that millions of children are victims of maltreatment in the form of neglect in the average year yes neglect in rich homes privileged homes wired to the hilt with every electronic gadget homes where parents come home but they＇re not really home because their heads are still at the office and their kids well their kids just make do with whatever emotional crumbs they get and you don＇t get much from endless tv computer games and videos
these hard cold numbers which for me wrench the soul and shake the spirit should indicate to you why i have devoted so much of my time and resources into making our new heal the kids initiative a colossal success
our goal is simple – to recreate the parentchild bond renew its promise and light the way forward for all the beautiful children who are destined one day to walk this earth
but since this is my first public lecture and you have so warmly welcomed me into your hearts i feel that i want to tell you more we each have our own story and in that sense statistics can become personal
they say that parenting is like dancing you take one step your child takes another i have discovered that getting parents to rededicate themselves to their children is only half the story the other half is preparing the children to reaccept their parents
when i was very young i remember that we had this crazy mutt of a dog named black girl a mix of wolf and retriever not only wasn＇t she much of a guard dog she was such a scared and nervous thing that it is a wonder she did not pass out every time a truck rumbled by or a thunderstorm swept through indiana my sister janet and i gave that dog so much love but we never really won back the sense of trust that had been stolen from her by her previous owner we knew he used to beat her we didn＇t know with what but whatever it was it was enough to suck the spirit right out of that dog
a lot of kids today are hurt puppies who have weaned themselves off the need for love they couldn＇t care less about their parents left to their own devices they cherish their independence they have moved on and have left their parents behind
then there are the far worse cases of children who harbor animosity and resentment toward their parents so that any overture that their parents might undertake would be thrown forcefully back in their face
tonight i don＇t want any of us to make this mistake that＇s why i＇m calling upon all the world＇s children – beginning with all of us here tonight – to forgive our parents if we felt neglected forgive them and teach them how to love again
you probably weren＇t surprised to hear that i did not have an idyllic childhood the strain and tension that exists in my relationship with my own father is well documented my father is a tough man and he pushed my brothers and me hard from the earliest age to be the best performers we could be
he had great difficulty showing affection he never really told me he loved me and he never really complimented me either if i did a great show he would tell me it was a good show and if i did an ok show he told me it was a lousy show
he seemed intent above all else on making us a commercial success and at that he was more than adept my father was a managerial genius and my brothers and i owe our professional success in no small measure to the forceful way that he pushed us he trained me as a showman and under his guidance i couldn＇t miss a step
but what i really wanted was a dad i wanted a father who showed me love and my father never did that he never said i love you while looking me straight in the eye he never played a game with me he never gave me a piggyback ride he never threw a pillow at me or a water balloon
but i remember once when i was about four years old there was a little carnival and he picked me up and put me on a pony it was a tiny gesture probably something he forgot five minutes later but because of that moment i have this special place in my heart for him because that＇s how kids are the little things mean so much to them and for me that one moment meant everything i only experienced it that one time but it made me feel really good about him and the world
but now i am a father myself and one day i was thinking about my own children prince and paris and how i wanted them to think of me when they grow up to be sure i would like them to remember how i always wanted them with me wherever i went how i always tried to put them before everything else but there are also challenges in their lives because my kids are stalked by paparazzi they can＇t always go to a park or a movie with me
so what if they grow older and resent me and how my choices impacted their youth why weren＇t we given an average childhood like all the other kids they might ask and at that moment i pray that my children will give me the benefit of the doubt that they will say to themselves our daddy did the best he could given the unique circumstances that he faced he may not have been perfect but he was a warm and decent man who tried to give us all the love in the world
i hope that they will always focus on the positive things on the sacrifices i willingly made for them and not criticize the things they had to give up or the errors i＇ve made and will certainly continue to make in raising them for we have all been someone＇s child and we know that despite the very best of plans and efforts mistakes will always occur that＇s just being human
and when i think about this of how i hope that my children will not judge me unkindly and will forgive my shortcomings i am forced to think of my own father and despite my earlier denials i am forced to admit that me must have loved me he did love me and i know that
there were little things that showed it when i was a kid i had a real sweet tooth – we all did my favorite food was glazed doughnuts and my father knew that so every few weeks i would come downstairs in the morning and there on the kitchen counter was a bag of glazed doughnuts – no note no explanation – just the doughnuts it was like santa claus
sometimes i would think about staying up late at night so i could see him leave them there but just like with santa claus i didn＇t want to ruin the magic for fear that he would never do it again my father had to leave them secretly at night so as no one might catch him with his guard down he was scared of human emotion he didn＇t understand it or know how to deal with it but he did know doughnuts
and when i allow the floodgates to open up there are other memories that come rushing back memories of other tiny gestures however imperfect that showed that he did what he could so tonight rather than focusing on what my father didn＇t do i want to focus on all the things he did do and on his own personal challenges i want to stop judging him
i have started reflecting on the fact that my father grew up in the south in a very poor family he came of age during the depression and his own father who struggled to feed his children showed little affection towards his family and raised my father and his siblings with an iron fist who could have imagined what it was like to grow up a poor black man in the south robbed of dignity bereft of hope struggling to become a man in a world that saw my father as subordinate i was the first black artist to be played on mtv and i remember how big a deal it was even then and that was in the 80s
my father moved to indiana and had a large family of his own working long hours in the steel mills work that kills the lungs and humbles the spirit all to support his family is it any wonder that he found it difficult to expose his feelings is it any mystery that he hardened his heart that he raised the emotional ramparts and most of all is it any wonder why he pushed his sons so hard to succeed as performers so that they could be saved from what he knew to be a life of indignity and poverty
i have begun to see that even my father＇s harshness was a kind of love an imperfect love to be sure but love nonetheless he pushed me because he loved me because he wanted no man ever to look down at his offspring
and now with time rather than bitterness i feel blessing in the place of anger i have found absolution and in the place of revenge i have found reconciliation and my initial fury has slowly given way to forgiveness
almost a decade ago i founded a charity called heal the world the title was something i felt inside me little did i know as shmuley later pointed out that those two words form the cornerstone of old testament prophecy do i really believe that we can heal this world that is riddled with war and genocide even today and do i really think that we can heal our children the same children who can enter their schools with guns and hatred and shoot down their classmates like they did at columbine or children who can beat a defenseless toddler to death like the tragic story of jamie bulger of course i do or i wouldn＇t be here tonight
but it all begins with forgiveness because to heal the world we first have to heal ourselves and to heal the kids we first have to heal the child within each and every one of us as an adult and as a parent i realize that i cannot be a whole human being nor a parent capable of unconditional love until i put to rest the ghosts of my own childhood
and that＇s what i＇m asking all of us to do tonight live up to the fifth of the ten commandments honor your parents by not judging them give them the benefit of the doubt
that is why i want to forgive my father and to stop judging him i want to forgive my father because i want a father and this is the only one that i＇ve got i want the weight of my past lifted from my shoulders and i want to be free to step into a new relationship with my father for the rest of my life unhindered by the goblins of the past
in a world filled with hate we must still dare to hope in a world filled with anger we must still dare to comfort in a world filled with despair we must still dare to dream and in a world filled with distrust we must still dare to believe
to all of you tonight who feel let down by your parents i ask you to let down your disappointment to all of you tonight who feel cheated by your fathers or mothers i ask you not to cheat yourself further and to all of you who wish to push your parents away i ask you to extend you hand to them instead i am asking you i am asking myself to give our parents the gift of unconditional love so that they too may learn how to love from us their children so that love will finally be restored to a desolate and lonely world
shmuley once mentioned to me an ancient biblical prophecy which says that a new world and a new time would come when the hearts of the parents would be restored through the hearts of their children my friends we are that world we are those children
mahatma gandhi said the weak can never forgive forgiveness is the attribute of the strong tonight be strong beyond being strong rise to the greatest challenge of all – to restore that broken covenant we must all overcome whatever crippling effects our childhoods may have had on our lives and in the words of jesse jackson forgive each other redeem each other and move on
this call for forgiveness may not result in oprah moments the world over with thousands of children making up with their parents but it will at least be a start and we＇ll all be so much happier as a result
and so ladies and gentlemen i conclude my remarks tonight with faith joy and excitement
from this day forward may a new song be heard
let that new song be the sound of children laughing
let that new song be the sound of children playing
let that new song be the sound of children singing
and let that new song be the sound of parents listening
together let us create a symphony of hearts marveling at the miracle of our children and basking in the beauty of love
let us heal the world and blight its pain
and may we all make beautiful music together
god bless you and i love you
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