Today-ish. New title and edited.

Got interrupted and posted this before it was ready. I added the Grace is Gone video.

Here is a lament. Dave Matthews Band live. It's a brilliant performance.



For me it perfectly captures the sense of being utterly smashed and crushed. Smashed and crushed is a real thing. When it happens, it cannot be avoided, no matter how hard you try.

The lyric is haunting.

"Grace Is Gone"

Dave Matthews Band

Neon shines through smoky eyes tonight

It's 2 am - I'm drunk again it's heavy on my mind

I could never love again so much as I love you

Where you end where I begin is like a river going through

Take my eyes take my heart I need them no more

If never again they fall upon the one I so adore

Excuse me please one more drink

Could you make it strong cause I don't need to think

She broke my heart my Grace is gone

One more drink and I'll move on

One drink to remember then another to forget

How could I ever dream to find sweet love like you again

One drink to remember and another to forget

Excuse me please one more drink

Could you make it strong cause I don't need to think

She broke my heart my Grace is gone

One more drink and I'll move on

One more drink and I'll be gone

You think of things impossible and the sun refuse to shine

I woke with you beside me your cold hand lay in mine

Excuse me please one more drink

Could you make it strong cause I don't need to think

She broke my heart my Grace is gone

One more drink and I'll go

Excuse me please one more drink

Could you make it strong cause I don't need to think

She broke my heart my Grace is gone

One more drink and I'll move on

One more drink and I'll be gone

One more drink my Grace is gone

Smashed and crushed isn't the only thing though. It's not all you have, it's not all you get, or at least not the only thing you can get. Check back with the DMB songs in my previous posts. You can get "Oh," you can get "Everyday." You can get more than you can imagine, and so much more than you're afraid you'll have to settle for.

##########

Today I'm a bit grumpy and growly inside. I have irritation and temper grumbling around in me.

Today also there are some external pressures impacting us, and they are the kind of pressures which are out of our control.

The kids are cycling through sadness and anger and fun play and happiness and naps. It's exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

"Bye, I'm goin' to the store!"

Golden

We grownups are doing the same thing, and we also are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing.

Several of you kind readers have rightly cautioned that the members of our family are not identical; that we each have strengths and weaknesses. I think what we're supposed to be doing is leaning on each others strengths and helping each other struggle with our weaknesses.

In my case for certain I must rely on God to do for me that which I cannot do for myself. I believe this is so for every other ape-lizard on the planet, but whether this is or is not so is far above my pay grade.

God is clearly showing me where and how I should be sharing my strength and love. Today it's a tough thing to do because I am beset with fear and anger and selfishness. It's tough, but it's not too tough. It sucks, but it does not suck too much. This is so because I am constantly asking God to show me his will for me and to give me the strength to carry it out. And God is doing this for me. He has not forsaken me.

In asking to be directed and strengthened, I am immediately removed from self and can bring all of my own strengths and abilities to bear on helping and loving. It's an enormous boon.

Some of this stuff is hard to write about and it would be so easy to just not do it. I have lots of perfectly good excuses, right? And they are perfectly good and acceptable. They were valid when my Dad died, right?

There's a difference today. I am not the Shaun of a year ago. God and Allie made it possible for me to grow into a different man. The wonder and joy of this new thing carries with it new responsibilities. Among those is the responsibility to try to share my experience, strength, and hope. In this way I just might be able to help those reading these words.

In a nutshell, I would suggest that what has worked for me -- what continues to work for me -- is to trust God, live, and love.

##########

And Kipling's "If" is never a bad thing to read and consider.

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

##########



Be well and embrace the blessings of liberty.