Sometimes beauty hurts

Running to make a commuter train connection recently, I was accompanied through the station by Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven. That extraordinary song goes right through me, undoes me. I’d like to see it come off radio playlists. Clapton himself says he 'can't play it anymore' because he does not want to manipulate audiences unfairly.

Rushing for my train, I had a choice -- keep my word and my appointment and shut down my emotion, or slow down and listen and mourn.

I caught my train. But I don’t like making that choice. I don't want to be sheltered from the sorrow and pain of the world. But the sorrow and pain of the world are not mild entertainment.

I feel a rant coming on now, one about societal de-sensitization, the exploitation of suffering for TV thrills and advertising dollars and the potential resulting loss of outrage and compassion when it counts.

But that’s not why I’m here. This blog is not for ranting – it's for finding beauty.

Deep breath. There’s something my mother used to say, when one of us hurt ourselves playing. ‘It hurts Mama!’ ‘That’s good,’ she’d say, as she put the bandaid on, ‘if you can feel it, that means you’re alive.’

Does that sound slightly depraved? It was confusing enough to get us to stop crying.

That said, her words are true: I’d rather hurt than be dead, in any sense of the word.

Because more than mama told me, I’ve learned that the places where it hurts, are the places alive to joy as well.

So if Clapton riles me in the train station, maybe I'll just Let It Rain all over my afternoon blues. Click there and join me, would you?