for a wall along the southern border.

I watched the local five o’clock news on ABC.  Becoming drowsy and I fell asleep while watching.  I awakened with the realization that the National News broadcast was in progress.  I saw images of an iced over highway with a tractor-trailer sliding in slow motion to slam into a steel guard rail.  As usual the commentator was speaking intensely, in a tone of voice indistinguishable from panic about a nor’easter that was about to slam into New England. 

Drifted off to sleep again; I awakened to hear an anguished report of the missing 23 year old Colorado mother, –her fiancee arrested on suspicion of murder.  Kelsey Berreth was her name.  What insanity, what demon of insanity drives a man to kill the mother of his child?  

All of this in the dim awareness of a sleep-fogged mind.  Before taking the nap I  already knew there was to be no resolution of the partial government shutdown any time soon.  Nine hundred thousand government workers are hostage without pay, to satiate a hole in the ego of a President who cannot be satiated.  A five billion dollar wall would not be enough to plug the void in this man’s ego.  He will have his wall, or else…….

Waking from a dreamless sleep was waking into a nightmare, waking in different rooms of hell.  And I know well that things could be, and might become much much worse.  We do not live in a war zone, and for now we have shelter and enough to eat.  All of this though depends on maintaining our sanity, on keeping the flame of our reason alive, on keeping a grip upon our humanity by refusing to hate.

---

Land of Hope and Dreams

by Bruce Springsteen

Grab your ticket and your suitcase, thunder’s rolling down this track
Well, you don’t know where you’re going now, but you know you won’t be back
Well, darling, if you’re weary, lay your head upon my chest
We’ll take what we can carry, yeah, and we’ll leave the rest

Well, big wheels roll through the fields where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams

I will provide for you and I’ll stand by your side
You’ll need a good companion now for this part of the ride
Yeah, leave behind your sorrows, let this day be the last
Well, tomorrow there’ll be sunshine and all this darkness past

Well, big wheels roll through fields where sunlight streams
Oh, meet me in a land of hope and dreams

Well, this train carries saints and sinners
This train carries losers and winners
This train carries whores and gamblers
This train carries lost souls

I said, this train, dreams will not be thwarted
This train, faith will be rewarded
This train, hear the steel wheels singing
This train, bells of freedom ringing

[Clarence Clemons sax solo]

Yes, this train carries saints and sinners
This train carries losers and winners
This train carries whores and gamblers
This train carries lost souls

I said, this train carries broken-hearted
This train, thieves and sweet souls departed
This train carries fools and kings thrown
This train, all aboard

I said, now this train, dreams will not be thwarted
This train, faith will be rewarded
This train, the steel wheels singing
This train, bells of freedom ringing