Breaking into song
The blues ain’t nothing but a good man feelin’ bad. – Leon Redbone
Cary Clack writes [San Antonio Express-News, October 5, 2010] that Janis Joplin shared her pain when she sang the blues.
“She was an artist that had a distinct sound,” says Michelle Carey, lead singer of P.M. Soul, a vocal powerhouse herself. “She was an original. She was expressive and passionate. She sang as if she had a score to settle; we felt her blues, we heard her cry, we knew she had done some living.”
. . . Among the reasons a teenager would take his life are being humiliated and treated like an outcast.
But a third thing that should come to mind when thinking of Joplin is that of an alienated teenager at Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur who was shunned and mocked by classmates (including former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson).
“I didn’t have many friends in high school,” she said. “They laughed me out of class, out of town, out of the state, so I’m going back.”
that I would miss hearing Grandson playing bass guitar . . . this was definitely a Summer of Music – and how grand it was!
And who would have thought the young boy trying to open his granddad’s brief case would one day be playing bass guitar???!!!
Life is this simple.
We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent
and God is shining through it all the time.
This is not just a fable or a nice story
It is true.
If we abandon ourselves to God
and forget ourselves,
we see it sometimes
and we see it maybe frequently.
God shows Godself everywhere,
In everything,
In people and in things and in nature and in events.
It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and
in everything and we cannot be without God.
It is impossible.
The only thing is that we don't see it.
- Thomas Merton