MP! Here's a well-kept hug for you!:flowers:
"A famous story that illustrates the power of dreams. Walt Disney died before Disney World was completed. His brother, Roy, completed the project. A newspaper reporter was interviewing Roy on opening day. He asked Roy, 'Isn't it a tragedy that Walt never got to see Disney World?" Roy replied, 'You're wrong. Walt did see it. He saw it in his imagination. That's why you're seeing it in person now.'"
~ Nate Booth
That is great! I bet that quote Michael would have loved and believed in with all his heart.
Just to visit the opposing argument briefly, this dream from Walt's imagination is one that
could realistically be realized through materials that people actually could build with and make it happen. Michael having a dream
girl from his imagination would mean neither himself nor "people" would have the means and material to make her into a reality.
So, that takes us back to God, because, as we've touched on before in this thread...would God bring to life the dream girl in Michael's mind? I remember your example, MP, of Abraham and God asking him to use his
imagination while seeing the multitude of stars in the night's sky, in order to have the faith
that God would, in a way, turn all those stars into his descendents. But God didn't literally turn those stars into descendents. But we know, if we have faith, that God COULD have, for God can do anything. We know he turned water into wine, and the Nile into blood, Aaron's once 'clean' hand to be full of leprosy and back to being clean again, a staff into a snake, an ear lying on the ground after being cut off reappearing on the side of a servant's head once again, and on and on and on. He can turn something out of nothing, but I have as of yet no accounts of Him turning nothing into a human being. Although it's pretty awesome how He(Jesus)and his servants(through God) have raised the dead to life again.
I know I have already dated myself with my being able to sing the lyrics from the
Gidget show that was on way back in the early sixties...and no doubt not too many would remember the show
Honey West. I really liked the star of that show; her name was Anne Francis. The reason I liked her so well is because even earlier than that show I saw her star in a
Twilight Zone episode. She was a mannequin who was brought to life! I remember as that little girl thinking that was so amazing! You know darn well that the next time I visited a department store I was looking at all those mannequins in a new light. I was always trying to find the one I would want to come alive and be my friend. Haha. But God wasn't going to do that for me; though He can do all things, that kind of thing doesn't seem to be His style.
Yet, maybe this dream girl of Michael's we're alluding to may not be someone you're thinking he wants to be "made alive" but she was already alive out there, and she matches his ideal? Since God is outside of Time, when He was showing those stars to Abraham that represented all Abraham's descendents, God, before the beginning of time, had already conceived in His mind each and everyone of his descendents...and for that matter, each and everyone of us. So if God placed this dream girl in MJ's heart and mind, she already "was" in God's mind ( I really should say, "is" since it is outside of Time).
Is this a little bit more what you are thinking of, MP, and so even if the LITD girl has started out in MJ's imagination, because God is behind it, she is out there...a real live girl.
So Emme7's vote is she is a real. MP, your vote is that she is kinda both...but ultimately is real. True?
Ashtanga, you have never been clear on your view so I don't know what to put for your vote.:tease:
Remember, with God, if it is HIS WILL, all things are possible. And
remember that it is impossible to please God without faith.
Remember the kind of faith Michael had, the kind that placed a piece of paper on a mirror with a number on it representing how many
Thriller albums would sell...and God, like His word promises, He answered MJ's prayer as One
who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, and... we all know that the final number of
Thriller units sold over time was a GREAT deal more than the number MJ scribbled down on that piece of paper...and even
that number his brothers thought impossible.
~ Speaking of
Remember:
Ms. Emme7 said:
Remember the Time is also another song in which MJ seems to have found love. He doesn't seem to be in the dark though, he just states "We were young and innocent then," which to me means we know more now and have experienced more than we did back then. As the song continues on, the repetitiveness of the question "Do you remember the time?" seems to become more of a command to remember. I guess the question for me in this song is what is the purpose of remembering? Was the goal in the song to woo the girl back or was it just to relive those warm tender moments?...... Every time we remember we relive. Remembering can be so bittersweet, because while you remember those good times, part of you also has to wonder why did it all end and can we make it work again. I guess as much as we may try to make some things last for an eternity, they seldom do...
Good analysis. You brought up some good points. From an interview I watched maybe two years ago (YouTube), I remember Teddy Riley saying that before he wrote the song MJ was sharing about his current wife and their story (at the time it was Debbie Rowe) and that he used it for the premise of that song. Debbie and MJ were in their early/mid twenties when they met and since she was asked by Dr. Klein to be a support to MJ while dealing with his new reality of Vitiligo, she generously made herself available to him. And they talked on the phone for hours into the night and did all kinds of fun things together. Then around 1990, Debbie got married (and was for a couple years) and it changed the dynamic of their friendship, as it would...she would naturally be focusing on her new husband. Riley it seems also used creative license and made it more of a romantical thing than the close friendship...but the song turned out great! Now in a recent, post June 25, 2009 interview, Riley said he would not share about who the girl was but that MJ had told him that he wanted the song to be
all about L.O.V.E.
~ Just sharing from things I've gathered overtime from reading interviews, so I'm not saying any of this is for sure.
EDIT: btw, MP, I love the song
Wichita Lineman. and Ashtanga:
... for an absent lover who he imagines he can hear "singing in the wire" that he is working on. Such a sonic vibration is commonly induced by wind blowing across small conductors...
That sort of reminds me of the lyrics in
I Just Can't Stop Loving You, like
" Each Time The Wind Blows/I Hear Your Voice So/I Call Your Name . . ."
