Jon Greenberg
born: February 22, 1956
died of AIDS: July 12, 1993
"I don't want an angry political funeral.
I just want you to burn me in the street and eat my flesh."-- announced to all of his friends on many occasions, especially in crowded elevators and in the presence of small children.
Jon Greenberg On Jan 22, 1991: Mark, Barbara, Anna, Steven, Laurie, Neil and I sat in the cafeteria of Channel 13, waiting for a signal which would tell us when to take those final steps, walk those final 100 yards which would propel us down the passage and into the studio where Robin MacNeil was reporting on the Iraq War once again.
We were nervous, frightened, fidgety. We were about to push through a social barrier, do what many had only imagined and fly in the face of convention and what was once considered acceptable social behavior: to declare our presence and force the world to take notice. Our country, this world, had lost all perspective. And we were determined, if only for a moment, to reaffirm some truth, some reality into a media event where truth and reality had ceased to have meaning.
We were prepared for everything we could possibly be prepared for, Mark had made sure of much of that. As many variables as we could control we did control, largely because of Mark's extraordinarily anal organizational abilities. But for all that, as we approached that studio door with the red light flashing outside; we, none of us, knew what to expect on the other side. The red light was meant to scare us into staying on our proper side, control our actions with fear. But Mark and the rest of us, in spite of our fear, knew that it was only fear and rather than let that stop us, we used it to propel us into further action, to confront and push through the barrier of our fear and be liberated even as our bodies were being arrested and jailed. there was an otherness about hose moments. We all felt it. We all knew that we had, if only for a moment, an hour, a day, become larger than we had been the day before. We each became part of the other and as a unit our collective spirit crossed an illusory boundary which we only knew was an illusion after we had crossed it. We were each a part of Mark on that day, and he was a part of each of us. Through collective empowerment we declared who we were and how we felt and made a place for ourselves in the universe.
Mark has once again crossed a boundary that each of us will sooner or later have to cross, whether we have AIDS or not, whether we are angry or not, whether we are afraid or not, and whether we have a Republican President or not. The truth is that each of us will one day follow Mark to that ultimate otherness and the final liberation. Mark took that road consciously, let us hope that we can do it as consciously, actively and as well prepared as Mark has. To the end Mark was unafraid of the consequences of his actions, or if afraid, he used that fear to propel him onward rather than to paralyze him and stop him from fully living.
Mark knew he was going to die. We, each of us, will also die. Mark's life and death, if it is to mean anything, cannot be trivialized by wishing it away or by pretending that there could be any other end. Yes, we are in pain. We have lost a precious powerful friend and colleague. But to avoid that pain by blaming it on someone else, robs us of our opportunity to experience and learn from a greater consciousness, a larger self, a fearlessness. Acceptance of our mortality--as Mark accepted his--makes it possible to live life fully, in spite of our fear; makes it possible to live life in real freedom because we are not afraid of the consequences of our actions.
It is only after we see how trivial and illusory are the political, social, religious, and physical barriers of this world can we begin to liberate ourselves from our fears and find our true power, consciousness, action and fearlessness. Mark was honest with himself and with his life. He knew his death was unavoidable, he knew that to believe otherwise was to believe a lie and to give more power to the fear of the unknown than to the courage, strength and love we can choose to face that unknown.
And Mark chose this action today as his memorial, making even his death an act of empowerment for his community and giving each of us an opportunity to publicly declare our presence, our pain, our right to life and our right to be proud of our deaths. We can learn from Mark's death: learn about consciousness, empowerment, fearlessness and action; and follow his lead as I followed him almost two year ago through the barrier of our fears.
Goodbye Mark and thank you for this final act of empowerment and generosity. Mark's final entry into his medical journal was: "mind is clear, feel like a connected whole...." _We honor that connected wholeness in our actions today.
Public Funeral Procession for Jon Greenberg, New York City
see also:
DIVA TV Cyber-Broadcast Jon Greenberg Funeral
Evening News Zap Day of Desperation