Yesterday, on June 30 2021, Belvie Rooks and I had the joy of being on a weekly radio show hosted by TJ and Taj Jackson, and the DeeDee Jackson Foundation, which was created in honor of their mother who was murdered when they were young. The foundation helps people, especially children, to heal from traumatic losses through music therapy.
We were very moved when we watched the video on their foundation’s home page, of how TJ, Taj, and their brother Taryll dealt with the grief of losing their mother by sharing their music with children. We saw the goodness of their hearts and were looking forward to the interview on their ‘Power of Love’ radio show. I pictured them as struggling-to-make-ends-meet musicians, raised in a rough and impoverished L.A. neighborhood.
The night before we went on the show, I did a google search to try to find that video again, because I wanted to watch it again. Lo and Behold there were hundreds of webpages related to these guys! It turns out they are very famous, of THE musical genius Jackson family. What a shock! They were ‘3T’, the three sons of Tito Jackson, and nephews of Michael Jackson. They had made several brilliant albums of their own, including Chapter III which contains the song, “The Power of Love.”
Now you might wonder: Did knowing they were famous change anything for me? Not really. I’d already seen the goodness of their hearts, and that’s what mattered to me. Outer trappings of fame and wealth don’t impress me if there’s no humility or heart on the inside.
When we entered the studio, I asked TJ : “So do you think it helps that you’re famous – the kids look up to you as a hero?”
He said, “That’s one of the reasons we do the music therapy with the kids. We wanted to use our ‘celebrity’ for something good.”
This reminded me of what my teacher, Dr. David R. Hawkins, told me: “Your gifts and credentials are there just to enable you to share with the world… like my being an M.D., a psychiatrist. I couldn’t help a lot of the people unless I had that title….But that was all just to be of service to them. That’s all.”
Each one of us is given certain gifts and experiences. It doesn’t matter if we are famous or not. What matters is that we use whatever we are, and whatever we’ve been given, to be helpful to others. Betty Eadie, who shares her near-death experience in our book The Power of Love, says that when we leave this world, we will see the ‘ripple effect’ of how our actions touched the lives of others. The size of the action doesn’t matter. Did it come from the heart? That’s what matters.
Here’s the link to the Episode on YouTube.
Thank you Taj, TJ, and Taryll, and the Dee Dee Jackson Foundation, for using your pain AND your fame to spread the healing power of love through music. Nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes. But if we do a little bit of kindness every day, this is a definite counterbalance because love is exponentially more powerful.
—Dr. Fran Grace, founding director of Inner Pathway