"Imagine something... you can have and hold"

I try avoid using the same song more than once for our Friday traditio. It's not unusual, however, for me to employ a few songs by the same group or artist in short succession. Last Sunday afternoon I was home alone, working on a few things and listening to the radio. As I worked and listened "Dreamin'" by Blondie came on.

Given some of what's been going on in my life the past several weeks, "Dreamin'" seems especially apt as our traditio this week.

The events to which I refer have not been unpleasant, just a bit disorienting for me. As a result, I have had to do some serious heart-work, some deep digging. Hey, I'm a work in progress. Progress isn't always pretty and doesn't always feel good. What I've realized is that it's important to be grateful for what I have even while, being human, I can't help but sometimes think about what might've been. Maybe this mental exercise isn't as fruitless as I insisted it was last Friday. Yeah, I don't claim to be infallible either.

While I'm at it, why not go literary as well?

Ever since I first read these words, written by C.S. Lewis at the beginning of his autobiography, Surprised By Joy, they have resonated with me. Far from appropriating his observation on false pretenses, these words capture something important for me and about me: "My father's people were true Welshmen, sentimental, passionate and rhetorical, easily moved to anger and to tenderness; men who laughed and cried a great deal and who had not much talent for happiness."

I apologize for the opacity of this post and last Friday's. I will try to get back to being more transparent next week. If nothing else, you were able to watch and listen to the opening song for Blondie's 1979 concert in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Hey, say a prayer for me if you don't mind.