Sightlines

Contemplations of the Mortal Sort

Saturday, October 20, 2007. Four questions, four invitations. Our teacher, Rodney Smith, asked us to consider these:
1. How have you prepared for your death?
2. What is unfinished in your life?
3. What frightens you about death?
4. What aspects of your character will help or hinder your dying?

I hesitate to blog about what some may see as a decidedly downbeat topic. So be it. Maybe it's the season--a time of endings and falling, and going to ground. I love this season with the darkening days. Days of wind and rain.

The current series at a weekly meditation session and "dharma talk" (a talk on Buddhist teachings), is on death. For many years Rodney was the director of Hospice of Seattle so he knows what of he speaks. 

Rodney suggested that one of the questions may be more compelling for us. Yes. For me it was the one about what is unfinished. But it wasn't enough to just  consider the question. Rodney encouraged us to write down some thoughts, and then share them in small group discussions. (On alternating weeks, we have small group discussions for 25 minutes or so).

It was a bit unsettling to write down those thoughts and then actually say them out loud to three total strangers. But in that setting it was comforting too. All those folks with basically the same good intentions, the same fears and trepidations, the same wishes to move away from, and yet come closer to, the heart of the matter... Cheers.

Magic, the Boss's new album

Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2007. Bruce Springsteen has a new album out today, "Magic." After reading A.O. Scott's story in last Sunday's NY Times, about interviewing the Boss, and hearing the album, I hopped over to iTunes and pre-ordered the album. I'm still a bit awestruck that I can order an album, get it downloaded, transfer it to my Nano, then listen to it while out on run--and all this without ever having an actual album or CD in hand...

Scott, who usually does film reviews, went to Asbury Park, N.J., where the E Street Band was rehearsing for an upcoming tour. Scott, a long-time fan of the Boss, said, "Mr. Springsteen's best songs, it seems to me, are about compromise and stoicism; disappointment and faith; work, patience and resignation. They are also, frequently--even the ones he wrote when he was still in his 20s--about nostalgia, about the desire to recapture those fleeting moments of intensity and possibility we associate with being young."  Yes. Yes indeed.

Scott goes on to say, "Magic" picks up where "The Rising" left off and takes stock of what has happened in this country since Sept. 11. Then, the collective experiences of grief and terror were up front. Now those same emotions lurk just below the surface...The key words of "The Rising" were hope, love, strength, faith, and they were grounded in a collective experience of mourning. There is more loneliness in "Magic," and, notwithstanding the relaxed pop mood, a lot less optimism."

Bruce said, "The record is a tallying of cost and of loss. That's the burden of adulthood. Period. But that's the burden of adulthood in these times, squared."  Cheers. (Photo from the NY Times)