27 years ago today and Christmas 2007

THAT DAY, 27 years ago when John Lennon was murdered remains as vividly sureal to me, as THAT DAY when JFK was murdered too.

John Lennon would have turned 67 on October 9, 2007. Although he hasn't spoken in 27 years, he has never been silenced.

At the age of 12, in the summer of 1966, inspired by John Lennon’s honesty, I tuned out the Catholic Church.

Up until I was about six years old, every Sunday morning was spent in a glass-encased room at St. Bernard’s one holy Roman Catholic Church, in Levittown, Long Island. The glass-encased room was called, and literally was, the Cry Room. Growing up with television, it was natural for me to stand up close against the soundproof glass and watch the show on the other side. Every so often, I’d hear the priest’s voice filter through the loudspeaker above my head. But it was all Latin to me: and back then, it really was!

I see myself now, just as I was then, surrounded by squirming kids and uptight adults, engulfed by the sounds of crying and whining, and I truly believed that was church. Once my younger brothers had grown, I got to be in the main room and the show lost its mystery to me, for the Latin had been changed to English and quickly became routine.

When I was 9, in 1963, two life altering events occurred.

By Thanksgiving that year, I was overfilled with images of JFK being shot and John-John during that motorcade. He was just a little guy in a short coat with his knees exposed who saluted as his father’s casket rode by and many of America’s other children also bid goodbye to childhood.

But, three months later, the gloom was gone, for the Beatles appeared on a Sunday night in my living room, and the world as I had known it changed again.

In the summer of ’66, it was reported that John Lennon made a comment to a friend and reporter that the Beatles were more popular with my generation than Jesus was. I agreed with him, for my friends and I knew every lyric to every Beatles song, but nobody ever quoted Jesus.

Lennon made me think about my own hypocrisy, and that led me to drop the institutional church. In the month of July on a Saturday afternoon, immediately after the ritual of weekly confession; I knelt at the altar and mindlessly repeated the same old prayers as the week prior. But on that particular day in '66, in the middle of the three Our Fathers and ten Hail Mary's, it hit me like a light. Those words that I uttered never changed anything, and I got up and walked out, convinced I was doomed for hell, for I had failed at Confession!

I never doubted there was a God, but as John said and I believed, “that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong…Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends...I believe that as soon as people want peace in the world they can have it. The only trouble is they are not aware they can get it........You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's all down to you, mate.......All we are saying is give peace a chance.......All you need is love.......Imagine all the people living life in peace.......You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.......Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."-john lennon

The following is from an email, I imagine can also be obtained @

http://www.IMAGINEPEACE.com

All Day on Saturday, Dec 8, 2007

A Message & Video will be playing

WAR IS OVER!

Artwork is now available for download at:
http://www.imaginepeace.com/downloads/WarIsOver.jpg
Print & display in your window, workplace, school, street, car, computer & elsewhere over the holiday season.

On December 8th, 11.15pm (your local time) remember John by taking a moment of quiet reflection. If you would like to play or sing the song "Imagine" and imagine a world of peace, just know that we are all together at that moment in every time zone, as IMAGINE PEACE makes its way around the world - every hour for 24 hours.

Send in stories & photos of what you did on December 8th to stories@imaginepeace.com for us, the family of Peace and Love, to tell us and tell us of your experiences. That would be lovely!

With deepest love
Yoko Ono Lennon

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas (War is Over, if you want it)repeat with verse
For weak and for strong
The rich and the poor ones
The road is so long
And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let's stop all the fight

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas (War is over, if you want it) repeat with verse
And what have we done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so happy Christmas
We hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
War is over, if you want it
War is over

Now

Imagine All the People Sharing All the World.-John Lennon