Just Like A Tree…

The thing about characterizing yourself as “spiritual” or “non-practicing,” or “non-religious” is that you are alone. Without a community it’s like being a big tree in a South American rain forest. You’re doing your thing, your roots are firmly entrenched in the ground, but you stand alone, surrounded by a lot of other great trees. There’s no connection.

You don’t go to church.  You don’t attend meetings or fraternize with any like-minded others at all.  You are a great tree.  Firmly planted.  Roots deeply entrenched.  Shading none.  Sheltering no one. Bearing no fruit. You are neither lamp nor light.  You’re lost and alone and afraid.

Dear God…

is there somebody out there?

Is there someone to hear my prayer?

I’m a simple man with simple words to say

Is there some point in asking?

Asking for more only got us where we are today

Lost and alone and afraid

Give me, love for the lonely

Give me, food for the hungry

Give me, peace in a restless world

Give me, hope for the children

Give me, a worldwide religion

Give me, peace in a restless world

Dear God, can you hear me crying?

A whole world crying

Looking for something to say

We had it all and we threw it all away

Is there somebody watching

Somebody watching over the mess that we’ve

made

We’re lost and alone and afraid

Give me, love for the lonely

Give me, food for the hungry

Give me, peace in a restless world

Give me, hope for the children

Give me, a worldwide religion

Give me, peace in a restless world

And we need to know there’s something good

Though all our years of solitude go on and on and on…

Give me, love for the lonely

Give me, food for the hungry

Give me, peace in a restless world

Give me, hope for the children

Give me, a worldwide religion

Give me, peace in a restless world

Dear God..,

is there somebody out there,

Is there someone to hear my prayer..?

♫♫The Sound Of Silence

The thing about music is once you have it in you, it’s yours forever.  No other art form burrows so deep inside your heart and your head like music.  You feel it. You crave it.  It creates sensations inside.  It makes you leap to your feet or can place you gently into a chair.  It makes you grimace, it makes you smile, it makes you laugh out loud.

It resurrects memories and sights and smells and tastes.  You see colors.  It reunites you with loved ones– or vice versa, the living and the dead.  It blurs the constraints of time or alters them completely.  Suddenly you’re twenty-five year old son or daughter is two again or you yourself are nineteen.  Music is the most powerful art form.

It’s not like a movie, or book or theater.  You can play whole songs in your head; your intimate, personal, private soundtrack  anytime, anyplace, anywhere. It’s portable.  No batteries required.  No equipment necessary.  It is all yours.  No one’s inner audio library is exactly like anyone else’s. No one may judge the sounds in your soul.

You can feel it by yourself or you can feel it in a group.  It can envelope you in melancholy and with the next cut, ecstasy. And the emotional explosion of excitement you experience when just one person relates to your inner sea. Music makes you feel good and makes feeling bad even better.

People fear death because they can feel just how much they’ll miss their music. Like a premonition– A foreboding.  Music is the moon that swells the tide of your being.  Music is your soul and your soul is you. What would it be like when music is turned off? It’s the SILENCE we’re all so afraid of.

Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

‘Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools”, said I, “You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you”

But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed

In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls”

And whispered in the sounds of silence

♫ Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

‘Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools”, said I, “You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you”

But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed

In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls”

And whispered in the sounds of silence ♫

♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫…

♫So much to say, so much to SAY, so much to SAY, so much to SAY…

First among many famous Tweeters whose fleeting thoughts are memorialized in writing.  How much more would they have said if there were, first, alive today,  and “egonomically” Favrd clever?

Jack Handey

The World’s  First Tweets, though, continue to outlast even these venerable thinkers

9“…and so there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Does anything exist of which one may say: ‘See this; it is new?’” Ec 1:9, 10

Still rockin’ the Pithy. Succinct. Bound.

Remember when thoughts used to be fleeting?

♫So much to say, so much to say,  so much to sell, so much to say…

I deleted my Twitter account today.

I am just not all that clever.

little baby…♫