It's 9 o'clock on a Saturday...Thursday really but...

It's nine o'clock on Saturday... Always liked that song but never really paid attention to the words. Ask me to sing a song and I am relegated to the humming section of the choir because I never remember the words. Ask me the title, sorry, can't remember that either. It's just words too. It's nice to be moved by the music, but what were the words? I googled the lyrics and they are pretty good although when it comes down to it "The Piano Man" is a self involved song of depression mixed with a cry for self importance and rather than drowning in depression and low self esteem the writer finds a saving thought that "hey I'm the Piano Man so I actually am important." Pitiful isn't it, but then it is a common place that we all find ourselves at times so I guess I shouldn't be so hard on one of America's most famous piano playing drunks. Sorry for the sarcasm, I couldn't help myself, but reality bites.

So it's 6 a.m. on a Thursday actually and I am sitting here typing some words. The sign in the yard is still standing there, I put it back up yesterday. Obama '08 is still standing there, staring at the motorized herds. They come passing my house one by one and I think it will still be okay...

Okay enough, just having fun but seriously, do we really listen? Do we really listen to anything the way we should? "Yes we can!" "Create change or change will create you." "There is nothing to fear except fear itself." Sound bites rattle around in our memories, emotions respond to the scenes on TV, our needs draw us together and we find ourselves in a world that has been simplified by cheap inspiration. It is not the commonality of the chorus that the choir sings but the meaning of music and the message of the lyrics that should draw the listener. Inspiration is cheap but do we really listen?

I remember sitting in church and hearing my father in the pulpit reading these words:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Bears all things, believeth all things, hopes for all things, endureth all things.
Love never fails: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Do we ever really listen?