When The New World Is Revealed...

It's no secret to anyone who reads this blog with any regularity whatsoever, or to anyone who has known me for any time at all, that I am an inveterate and thoroughly unashamed fanatic for The Boss.

However... this song, which I heard him play last spring as his encore at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival just completely knocks me over the edge. When I heard him play it last spring, he introduced the song by saying something like, "there's at least a dozen people here right now who can do this song better than me..." and then he moved into it with such a soft touch and such a sincere heart (as he had played his whole set) that I just sat down in the mud and cried.

My dear friend Mary sent this link to me the other day and when I finally got around to viewing it tonight, I had the same reaction I had at the New Orleans Fairgrounds eight months ago. I simply sat down and wept.

It's my nomination for best performance of the year in any medium and with any purpose. It's the perfect way to end this horrible year and begin a new one that I hope (and I imagine you hope) will be as good as any time gets. It does what a gospel song (and really any song) is meant to do... it calls us to be better than we are right now; it calls us to be fresh, and hopeful, and new.

Take the time (even if you have a slow connection) and listen to this amazing version of When The Saints. Think on the plight of the city I love so much and the city that I hope you too hold in your heart, but also let it wash over you and disturb you a little bit; let it call you to be a better person, in a better place, with a better heart. The sixteen (that's right... sixteen) months since Katrina have remade me in a way that I never would have expected and through a process I absolutely would never have chosen voluntarily. However, the fact is I'm a better person (maybe even a MUCH better person) than I was the day I started writing this blog, and while I wish I could wave a magic wand and prevent all of the suffering that came out of Katrina, and that continues to this day, I would not wish for myself a different path.

I DO want to be in that number... both right now and in the far off unseen future.

Oh yeah... Happy New Year Y'all!