The Sanguine Sixties

Bruce Springsteen reminds me of November. There is something stark yet rich about his music. It's rock n' roll underlaid by longing and sometimes a tinge of sadness. There is gratitude in his embodiment and celebration of the moments and events of life.  So gratefully, I've started a subscription to Sirius Radio, an early Christmas present from my husband John. Sirius has an E Street Band Channel (20) and I've been listening to it almost exclusively since my subscription began.  I would call myself a slightly above average Springsteen fan. I caught the magic, as so many people do, when I saw him live. I became a fan at the L.A. Sports Arena sometime in August 1981 on the River tour. Before that I mainly knew Bruce as the guy who improbably was on the cover of Time and Newsweek at the same time. In high school, my tastes ran more toward America and the Eagles. One of my tennis-playing friends told me those were too mellow and even though Bruce wasn't played much on t...

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, immortalized by the song from Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." It's a haunting song with the haunting verse, "Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?" Certainly in extreme life and death situations like this, we can feel abandoned by God.  There are other circumstances where one may wonder "where the love of God goes." Poverty, for one. I've been thinking about poverty, or more to the point, people who are poor, a lot this past week. On Friday, I participated in a Poverty Exercise at the Dream Center in Peoria. The approximately 50 participants were divided into families of 3-5 and given a task of items to accomplish, mainly surrounding paying bills. I was a disabled father-in-law, who was reduced to making suggestions and watching helplessly as my daughter and son-in-law scrambled to cover bills with no...

Franklin enjoying some coconut. I'm in the Dominican Republic with my husband John. He comes here frequently for Haitian Hearts work. I join him every two years or so to see in person some of the work we do.  Yesterday we traveled about two hours from Santo Domingo, the capital, to the home of one of John's patients, 13-year-old Franklin, who has a big heart problem. Ten years ago or longer, Franklin got strep throat, which developed into rheumatic fever, which has severely damaged the mitral valve in his heart. I will talk more about Franklin in a future post. John wanted to examine Franklin in his home (you learn a lot about a patient when you see him in his home environment). A driver took us through the city of Santo Domingo out into the country, to the little settlement where Franklin and his family live. Fortunately for us, yesterday was a national holiday, Constitution Day, so while there was traffic, it wasn't nearly as heavy as a typical Monday. Perhaps traffic acc...