The Straw That Broke Me Open

It's twelve hours to a new year here on the west coast of North America. In some parts of the world the time has already passed. I'm sitting at my desk trying to figure out what I want to say about this past year for a final Blues Routes program and there's really only one thing that colors absolutely everything... mentally, emotionally, financially, socially, geographically, and spiritually... Katrina.

I just found a video online for "Last Night of the World." The song is from an incredible album by Bruce Cockburn entitled "Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu," and I'd be hard pressed to come up with a better illustration for the way my life as gone this year than that very feeling of being tossed about and around the world on a wind and a whim.

In the song, Cockburn describes seeing "the flame of hope among the hopeless," and declares "that was the straw that broke me open." And THERE it is... The straw that broke ME open was the hurricane that blew through my life and took everything apart. So... four months later, here I am back where it all started 25 years ago when I finished seminary and moved into San Francisco seeking to change the world.

The song begins with the line "I'm sipping Flor de Cana and lime juice..." It took me a while to catch the line, but when I caught it, I cracked up. Flor de Cana is a fabulous rum made in Nicaragua that I first got a taste of (and a hankering for)in 1983 when I traveled there with the very first Witness for Peace team, on a mission to fight the Reagan Administration's incursions into the lives of the people there. Here we are, 23 years later and I've got a hankering for Flor de Cana, while the son of Reagan's V.P. is carrying on the best traditions of his elders. The more things change... the more they stay the same. I think I'll go out and find me some Flor de Cana to help me bring in the New Year.

If this were the last night of the world... what would I do that was different?

Unless it was champagne with YOU?