Music has the power to transform, to entertain, to delight, to comfort and heal. Some songs just blow me away. I heard one that would fit that category on my way home from a township meeting that addressed the killing of the son/grandson of friends of mine, by a police officer. He was unarmed, handcuffed and yet the situation got out of control and a young and promising life was snuffed out senselessly. Although I had never met him, I have known his parents and grandmother for the past 15-20 years. I can only imagine what this might be like for them, since no one expects to bury their child or grandchild. Together they have a strong and eclectic spiritual practice and are part of my interfaith community. I sense that is what is getting them through this unthinkable situation. The room was filled to capacity and there were others in the hallway. A few of us addressed the town council  and I sense that they heard us. I looked into each of their eyes as I spoke, reminding them that the line between mental health and mental illness is remarkably thin and that anyone could cross it. I told them that I imagined that they each knew someone with a psychiatric diagnosis and any of these folks could have been in this young man’s situation. I added that I’m certain that the officer who shot  him had not woken up that morning with the thought that he was going to kill some kid and he must be going through his own private hell as well.

What also crossed my mind was the family and friends of a friend of my sister Jan who were mourning her passing yesterday. Her name was Leah Stevens and her faith got her through many months of treatment for the cancer that eventually led her to her next life. I didn’t know her personally, but from reading the multitude of postings on facebook as she took her journey from diagnosis to death, I felt as if I did. How loved she was, what a gift she was to those who crossed her path. She clearly had a sense of humor. When she went to see Bruce Springsteen in concert and met him backstage,  he signed her bald little head(:

Another friend is facing a major shift in a close relationship and still another is dealing with the impact on her family of her father in-law’s dementia.

My heart is also with the families of those killed in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and a movie theater in Colorado and everyone whose names we may never read or hear and whose faces we may never see who daily encounter violence. As I am calmly and safely in my home, writing these words, I am humbled and grateful that my needs are taken care of and my ‘problems’ are more inconveniences than anything else. I have seen my way through what might be labeled ‘tragedy’, including the deaths of my husband and parents, as well as the loss of a home and business to a hurricane. Like everyone reading this, I have survived everything that has ever happened to me, because I am here to tell about it.

As I was driving through winding country roads, I witnessed an exquisite sunset, with cotton candy pink clouds sprawling across a baby blue blanket sky. The aforementioned song called Isn’t This World Enough? is performed by Scottish indie music perfomers Admiral Fallow was the perfect soundscape to accompany my visual skyscape. Like most songs that I hear for the first time, it found a home on my favorite radio station WXPN out of the University of Pennsylvania.