Isn't this so much of what life is about? Robin Williams brought us to the tears of laughter and humbled us at the same time with his raw, beautiful, humanity: apparently this comic genius committed suicide... The Middle East is exploding -- with no clear path forward to peace and justice -- and the dreams of brothers descend into nightmares... Russia looks to perhaps invade the Ukraine... people starving and a devastated Planet crying: can you hear the gut-wrenching groans?
To be alive right now is to have been born under "the burden of the psalms"... what is that? For years now I have wondered... Perhaps it is not about a book of poetry in the Bible: but it is about transforming pain into praise, and sadness into song... if this precious blue Planet were to die this very night and take every life -- every form of life -- with it: the void and emptiness would still praise and sing: What is our song? "I need you, I need you, I need you"... Need anything else be said? Jew must say to Muslim and Muslim to Jew: "I need you"... Christian must say to Muslim and Muslim to Christian: "I need you"... Every faith and no faith, conservative, liberal, progressive, and radical... man and woman, adult and child, human and non-human, living and dead and future born: "I need you, I need you, I need you"... This living, this needing to be felt, honored, cherished, and above all, said: is the burden of the psalms... And the only way to make light the burdens that we carry is to share the weight...