I went for a walk last night after Glen Campbell sang "Rhinestone Cowboy" at the Grammys and invited the audience to sing with him on the chorus. As many know, Campbell has early-onset Alzheimer's and is on his last singing tour of America. Initially, I found his song macabre
(more) and heartbreaking. I had to get out.
I walked in a light rain and vaguely remembered a few words from a poem by Robert Frost. The true opening lines are: "I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain and back in rain." My nose was running. I had no Kleenex. I wiped my nose on my sweatshirt sleeve. I thought about the metaphor of Night and how it comes to us. I was still thinking of Glen Campbell and decided that singing his signature song in front of hundreds of people wasn t macabre at all but almost intolerably brave. He WAS like a cowboy going out still shining while he could--on his horse.
What does life mean anyway? This thought is an obsession lately along with the choices I have made and where they have led me. I was on the is-there-a-God part of the discussion when I looked up to a billboard that said, JESUS IS. Definitely a salvation moment except I appear incapable of being saved by conventional evangelical means. Still, interesting timing. I was like, "Wow." It was one of those multi-message billboards so after the words JESUS IS, a giant picture of a horse switched on--an ad for a circus. Jesus is a horse? I thought, "Jesus was a lion in the Narnia books so he could be a horse." I found the idea simple and extremely comforting. I wanted Jesus to be a horse for Glen Campbell.
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