Loss. It fills my spirit these days. Well, perhaps “fills” is not the right word to use. Loss is not the only thing in my spirit and in my life. There are other things, other thoughts, other ideas floating about in my heart. How can there not be? “There are planes to catch, and bills to pay”, to paraphrase Harry Chapin in “Cats in The Cradle”. Life goes on. But it goes on now against a seemingly ever-present, gloomy gray background of loss.
But, here is something I am learning. My loss – however great its dimensions – stands alongside the loss that pervades every part of our world, that brushes up against every person in our world. Can we measure loss? Can we compare it? Can we truthfully say to another, “Your loss doesn’t measure up to, isn’t as bad, isn’t as big, isn’t as difficult, isn’t as terrible as my loss.” That sounds so foolish. We all stand touched, or about to be touched, by loss.
Some loss is intensely personal and private. But other loss is shared, and sometimes shared by many. Just a couple of weeks ago, the rock guitarist, Jeff Beck, passed away – a loss felt throughout the music world.
And now, another famous musician, David Crosby, is gone. I was always a casual fan of the music of Crosby, Stills, Nash, [and sometimes] Young, picking up on and loving the amazing harmonies of some of their bigger hits like “Carry On”, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, “Southern Cross”, and, of course, “Woodstock”. But these, and their other big and popular hits, are but a fraction of the music that this group wrote and sang and gifted to the world over the years.
Since his death on January 18th, it seems you cannot scroll through Facebook without coming upon post after post of tributes to David Crosby and to the music he and his fellow band members wrote and recorded through the years. Some of these tributes include links to performances of songs which I never knew existed, and which, of course, I had never heard. And these previously unknown to me songs are awesome! It’s a shame that it took the death of David Crosby to introduce me to some of his best work. [Something else I have learned over the last few days is that band member, Stephen Stills, lived for a time in his growing up years in Covington, LA, and attended LSU for a while!]
Today, I came across two separate groups singing, as a tribute to David Crosby, one of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash songs which I had never heard before – “Helplessly Hoping”. I was immediately intrigued, and found that it was written in 1969 by Stephen Stills as a reflection of, and to help him deal with the imminent dissolution of his relationship with Judy Collins and her young child. It’s a song of loss.
And even though the song was not written about my loss, or even a loss as sudden and final as mine, the lyrics and the harmonies have completely overwhelmed me and captured my mind this afternoon. The second verse is speaking hauntingly to me today. Somehow, it is telling my story:
Wordlessly watching
He waits by the window
And wonders
At the empty place inside.
Heartlessly helping himself to her bad dreams
He worries
Did he hear a good-bye? Or even hello?
And somehow, I hear the chorus telling our story:
They are one person
They are two alone
They are three together
They are for each other.
What a blessing music can be. And what a burden music can be.
But, I think the truth is that music, and perhaps, to some extent, these little blog articles of mine, can be an attempt at sharing of loss, with the hope that it may bring some healing, with the hope that it may bring some relief - both to the singers and the writers, and to the listeners and readers.
Here’s to hope.
Ambrose Ramsey | Pastor and Shepherd
