Prophets Behaving Poorly

Today would have been John Lennon's 73rd birthday had he lived. In reality, John Lennon was alive for only 40 years and soon we will have been without him as long as we were with him. I notice the large number of people honoring this day and honoring the man. Many of his fans consider him akin to Jesus, a modern day Messiah. Certainly, John Lennon wrote (or co-wrote) a lot of brilliant tunes. Many of his songs were about peace and love, he had a lot of ideas, but behind those ideas was a man who by all accounts was a  jerk. You know who else was a jerk? Ghandi.

It is almost like being a jerk who does amazing things is something our culture reveres. This archetype has even made it into fiction. In the Harry Potter  series Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape and The Marauders (James Potter, Sirius Black and to a lesser extent Remus Lupin) all do really, jerktastic things, but are still considered heroes and in fact are some of the most beloved characters of the series! Our fiction may also provide us with the answer to this madness. Sure Harry finds out that his dad and friends were arrogant bullying jerks and that Dumbledore helped the second greatest dark lord of all time until it caused the death of his sister, but he realizes that we are not only the bad things that we do. Conversely, Harry always knew that Snape was a jerk, but didn't know until the end that Snape had such a capacity to love that it changed his life. All of these jerks in the Harry Potter series were on the side of good, and all of them died to bring down Voldemort. It is a major plot point that Harry realizes that he must accept that Dumbledore did some bad things, but that he must still trust the path Dumbledore has set him on, to trust in Dumbledore.

We as a culture are like Wizard Britain. We must look at our "heroes" and accept that they were humans. Some people may not be able to forgive that John Lennon was a bad father to his first son, a bad husband, a woman beater and a cheater. I don't think those behaviors are acceptable in any way, but he wrote songs about peace and love, songs that are quoted to this day! I can't ignore the strides he made (and the path his music has forged) to make the world a more loving and peaceful place. Perhaps his writing was his way of trying to make amends for the terrible things he had done.

I myself want peace and love. I stand for it, I would probably die for it, but that doesn't stop me from being downright scary when I get angry. It also doesn't help that I am quick to anger. I see the problems in myself and recognize the problems in the world. I try my best to fix them both, but I am but a human. So was John Lennon. Happy Birthday John Lennon, may you be at peace, wherever you are, and may the good you have done for so many, outshine, but never erase, the horrible things you did to a few.