A friend wrote about the creativity, comity, the shear effort to offer assistance in this time of necessary quarantine.  Yes, there are innumerable acts of sacrifice, a dedication of time, perhaps of groceries to a person who was in need of the help.  Such expressions of our shared humanity, the vulnerability and community orientation that is encoded in our type of mammal — finds catalysis in these conditions of extremity.

Do we know what the future holds?  We do not.  We do know that if we do not severely reduce the spread of the virus that our society will be subjected to waves of serious illness, and many fatalities for months to come, until the plague burns out.  We do not know how severe the damage to our economy will prove to be, even if we are successful at resuming normal life, step by step.  How long will the recession last?  Something worse?  We will not know until we can look backwards, in retrospect, and say, “that’s what it was.”

Meanwhile, we have the ability to exercise kindness at every opportunity, even to make new forms of kindness an issue of interest.  At the macro level things will not change for the time being.  I must cease the expenditure of energy, the resentment I feel toward a President who conducts himself like a drunken patron. The disheveled  man stumbling toward the barroom door, unable to find his car keys, which are in one of his suit pockets.  What President in his right mind would discontinue funding for the World Health Organization while the world is in the midst of a global pandemic?

Meanwhile, the rest of us, you and I journey on.  I offer for your elevation this tune by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.  By chance many years ago I viewed a segment of the video footage of this concert in New York, while in a hotel room in Columbia Kentucky.  That serendipitous discovery, during those few minutes of rapturous viewing, subtly changed my life in a way that I cannot explain.  Enjoy the song.

One more thing.  Max Weinberg’s drum beat which opens the tune, — is that not the heartbeat of the world?

Land Of Hope And Dreams

Grab your ticket and your suitcase
Thunder’s rollin’ down this track
Well, you don’t know where you’re goin’ now
But you know you won’t be back
Well, darlin’ if you’re weary
Lay your head upon my chest
We’ll take what we can carry
Yeah, and we’ll leave the rest

Big wheels roll through fields
Where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams

Well, 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
Leave behind your sorrows
Let this day be the last
Tomorrow there’ll be sunshine
And all this darkness past

Big wheels roll through fields
Where sunlight streams
Oh meet me in a land of hope and dreams

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

LAND OF HOPE AND DREAMS is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and released on his 2012 album Wrecking Ball