What We Are Here For

“Pop-pop, tell us about the 60’s,” my grandkids asked one day.

A faraway dreamy gaze came over my face as I transported myself back to those days. 

“Well, kids, it was a difficult time. A time of great turmoil and division and confusion. There had been four country-shaking assassinations, a terrible war (as all wars are) raging overseas, firehoses and vicious dogs used by the police against children, four peacefully protesting students shot by the National Guard at a college close to mine.

But it also was a beautiful time. What I remember is a great sense of hope, a great confidence that we were going to turn this ugly world over to show its beautiful side. Instead of dreaming about a 9 to 5 job dressed in suits and the home in the suburbs with the two-car garage, we imagined a home in the country with an organic garden. Instead of hours on the couch watching mindless TV, we brought out the guitars and sang. Instead of dutifully going to an elaborately decorated Church to fulfill a weekly religious social obligation, we sat and meditated on cushions. Instead of sitting alone in a dark, dank bar drowning our sorrows in beer and whiskey and throwing up in the gutter, we sat in a circle and passed a joint around and listened to music. 

And what music! Some of it loud and raucous and booty-shaking and some of it exquisitely tender with lyrics that were true poetry. Hopeful lyrics that wrapped us in its dream of a better, kinder, more fulfilling world. Words that asked us to listen to the Sounds of Silence, to Teach Our Children Well, to look at life from Both Sides Now. They gave us sunshine on a cloudy day, helped us look for the answers Blowing in the Wind and petitioned the invisible powers to have the longtime sun shine upon us, all love surround us, and the pure light within us, guide our way on. They reminded us how we got by with A Little Help from Our Friends and that All You Need Is Love.

“Can we hear one of the songs?” the kids asked.

So I chose Love Song by Elton John and I saw that same dreamy look come over them as we listened to words that we need to remember in our present day reality of cruelty, contempt, bile and bitterness that swirls around ourselves and our innocent children.*

The words I have to say
May well be simple but they're true
Until you give your love
There's nothing more that we can do

Love is the opening door
Love is what we came here for…

 

Love is the key we must turn

Truth is the flame we must burn

Freedom the lesson we must learn…

When the song ended and they snapped out of their 60’s trance, they looked up at me with a pained, confused expression and asked:

“Pop-pop, what happened?” 

* Take a listen: https://youtu.be/Q3RJmv29rHo