On December 8th, 1980, I was working the overnight shift at a crisis intervention/youth shelter at Glassboro State College called Together, Inc. with my friend Joe Arnauskas. My sister called and said, “Quick, turn on the television! John Lennon was just shot.” My reaction was denial that it was like the “Paul is dead,” rumor. “No,” she said. “He really was killed.” I felt a sense of dazed surrealism and to this day, it’s still hard to believe. I had just, shortly before, been listening to Double Fantasy and was reminded of the lyrics to Beautiful Boy, that he had composed for his young son Sean. ” Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” On some level, did his soul know what was coming? I wouldn’t doubt it.

One of my favorite tribute pieces to this man of peace is from Elton John called Empty Garden

What happened here
As the New York sunset disappeared
I found an empty garden among the flagstones there
Who lived here
He must have been a gardener that cared a lot
Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop
And now it all looks strange
It’s funny how one insect can damage so much grain

And what’s it for
This little empty garden by the brownstone door
And in the cracks along the sidewalk nothing grows no more
Who lived here
He must have been a gardener that cared a lot
Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop
And we are so amazed we’re crippled and we’re dazed
A gardener like that one no one can replace

And I’ve been knocking but no one answers
And I’ve been knocking most all the day
Oh and I’ve been calling oh hey hey Johnny
Can’t you come out to play

And through their tears
Some say he farmed his best in younger years
But he’d have said that roots grow stronger if only he could hear
Who lived there
He must have been a gardener that cared a lot
Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop
Now we pray for rain, and with every drop that falls
We hear, we hear your name

Johnny can’t you come out to play in your empty garden

John Lennon’s music was part of the soundscape of my life, as I listened to the Beatles from their initial appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, through their breakup when I was in sixth grade, as they took us down The Long and Winding Road. I related to his pacifist sensibilities and watched with delight and fascination as he and Yoko invited the world into their hotel room for a bed-in for peace and held audience with the press. The iconic chant:  “All we are saying, is give peace a chance,”  still echoes in my ears and reverberates with the same call, beckoning action to make it so, all these years later.

I too consider myself a pacifist and like to think that I walk a peaceful path. I assume cooperation between myself and the people with whom I interact. I go for the win-win and look for ways to go heart to heart, rather than head to head, these days. Sometimes my ego twitches, wanting things ‘my way’. It’s then that I seek the Highest Good outcome and trust that my needs will be met. Wondering if that’s the key to ending conflict in the world; knowing that we need not butt heads over the perception of scarce resources, whether they be land or love, finances or fun. I am learning that there really is enough to go around.

I often wonder what John Lennon would have created over the years by way of musical magic had he lived. Another peace anthem?  Experimental sounds?  A reunion with Ringo and Paul? We’ll never know.

Taking the ‘life is what happens to you…’ analogy further, I enter each day, not knowing what it will bring. I set intention that it be filled with wonder and work as co-creator with the Divine.