Lucky

My birthday (I promise this is the last post on this subject) started with a song on my car stereo - one of those perfect song moments that make it feel like someone is composing a soundtrack for your life – just as I started the car the song came blasting from the speakers… Melissa Etheridge starting the whole weekend's theme with "I wanna see how lucky, lucky can be… Ride with me." On those notes, I headed out of my little side street and into the rest of my life.

For some strange reason the song kept finding it's way into my consciousness over and over again throughout the weekend. Another significant moment being when I got in the car after going to Glide Memorial yesterday and being treated to a Katrina weep fest (half an hour of choir music and Katrina photos) that was purging and aching and powerful all at once, combined with a pep rally sermon from Pastor Douglas Finch that majored on the idea that you must take your own power into your life and neither give it away nor expect others to do the work of living for you. It was a strong message and absolutely perfect for the day. Returning down Ellis Street (thoguh the crowds of hookers and homeless) to my car, I got in, turned the engine, and got walloped right between the eyes with Melissa's Lucky Song (it wasn't until this point that I noticed that when programming the album sequence she had the perverted sense of humor to make the song cut #13).

Now… heading into a new week and a new year, on the anniversary of my escape from Katrina (at this very moment one year ago I was filling up Pat Jolly's van and looking for a way out of town, a 100 mile journey up to Hattiesburg that would wind up taking eleven hours), I am ready to put a new shine on this journey. If last year was the "year of leaving dangersously" this next year must be the year of returning to life.

There's another line, from another song on the same album, in which Melissa sings that "I am still learning the lesson, to awake when I hear the call…" I think that's my new image for this new year. It's that sense that the central image of Buddhism is "Wake Up!

So… here we go. I'm ready… I hope…

What's Next?

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And while we're on the subject of LUCK... it's looking like Eduardo is going to be nice to New Orleans and go blast the poor folks in Florida this time. I hope those Okeechobee levees hold!