Imagine John Lennon Holiday John Lennon Assassination Lennon Anniversary Legacy of Peace
Perhaps, for his visionary dream of peace, it is time to create a Holiday to commemorate John Lennon.
Every year since John Lennon was shot down in 1980, spontaneous crowds collect near his Memorial in Central Park calledStrawberryFields. In the center of the memorial is the wordIMAGINEsurrounded by stones, trees and often, fresh flowers. The Memorial is built and maintained by contributions from more than 120 nations, world wide. It s a leading draw for tourists in New York City, NY. and has been for well over thirty years.
If a Holiday were to be declared, it would simply supply a name to an occurrence that happens already every December 8th and 9th. Melancholy, celebration, and even genuine grief mark these anniversary events.
Yoko One began the work of dedicated remembrance to her husband by being the first to donate one million dollars in 1985. Since that time, she does not always stay in the apartment at theDakotawhere she and Lennon lived, but she does commemorate the occasion with two candles burning in the window. “I put the candles in the window to give some light,” Ono said. Yoko Ono is truly touched by the continuing love of Lennon’s millions of fans.
Lennon’s assassination may be part of what made him somewhat of an Icon and a martyr for peace, and he was not Gandhi or Martin Luther King. But Lennon did indeed influence the world. Culture is more moved by music, and art, then it ever could be moved by even the finest ideology. Lennon was human, and his flaws bring to mind the man who was a slave ship holder, but wrote“Amazing Grace” later in life when he reformed and repented mistakes he was mature enough to admit, and from which he had learned.
Should the world celebrate a man whose vision of peace, who did in fact influence the protests that ended the Vietnam War? Lennon also supported and asked for justice for others. John Sinclair is one, who was imprisoned for a decade for possession of two marijuana cigarettes. Lennon too, was a real life victim of over zealous Nixon administration types who understood his “dangerous” influence for love and for peace, and his radical insights. The CIA trailed and tracked Lennon for years.
But Lennon's true and enduring legacy is not just of peace, love, music and friendship. His lyrics reveal free thinking, the most dangerous idea of all. It is an idea, that should be celebrated, even in the man himself is not. It is best described in Lennon's own words:
“We’re trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And (music) it’s the only way to get people aware that peace is possible.”
The songImaginesells a sincere vision of peace. Love it or hate it, it asks people to realize that institutions like religion and property ownership have become co-opted and corrupt. They influence and deny human belonging and cooperation with a living world. Lennon asks, even in his death, that people open their closed minds and see that as humans there is a choice. He is a true "Know" where man in this realization. Although, at this stage "we: may be only dreamers. "
"..But, I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one."
