Into The Darkness
Another day, a weirdly warm fifty degrees, but the usual gray for February. Was reflecting upon a meeting with friends last night. I flashed back to the 60s where coffee shops were places for songs of resistance to a war, and for building alternative community. Our colonial forebears likewise met in the public houses of New England to discuss the prospects of independence from King George.
I also recalled the title of a Springsteen song, Darkness On The Edge of Town written in 1978. The lyric is a retrospective of one man’s life, deeply felt loss, disappointment that is essentially beyond communication to another. None of us at Beans & Leaves last night were youngsters. For each, life has taken it’s toll. As in the Springsteen lyric it is common for relationships to fail, painfully, lamentably. There is the trauma of unemployment, or the ubiquitous underemployment, especially when those we love are effected. There are spells of sickness and the inevitable aging. Finally the reason for our gathering, the threat to a humane future, a society subject to the whims of tyranny–as represented by the individual in the White House.
What is to be done? One can emotionally withdraw into a fetal ball, nurturing one’s fear, cultivating hatred for “the other” the easy scapegoat for our troubles. Or we can let it go, with everything we’ve got, making common cause to establish a inclusive community, supportive of kindness, and all of the public goods conducive to well being. Certainly there is a cost, which no one can calculate. But how can we not show up knowing that what we want can only be found, “in the darkness at the edge of town?”
Sing it Bruce!
