The light is dimming and the dream is too.

Anyone who has followed my blog for any length of time knows I like to quote songs. Some people like to quote scriptures. I quote a few but I find the scriptures are so often misquoted and misrepresented I prefer to quote other sources. Any inspired verse can lift us whether that be a song, a poem or a scripture.

Different songs move me at different times in my life. At one time the song Carry on My Wayward son spoke to me. Last week a few Neil Young songs spoke to me. Today two other songs come to mind. The first one is from Andrew Lloyd Webber about Joseph's Dream. Joseph has this wonderful dream then every kept falling apart. It went from bad to worse.

First he gets sold as a slave to Egypt. Then he finds favor with Pharaoh and rises in Pharaoh's court. Until Pharaoh's wife tries to seduce him. Joseph was like yo girl, you're Pharaoh's wife. I 'ain't touchin that. So she sets him up and he goes to jail for a crime he did not commit.

As he's sitting in prison he sings "May I return to the beginning? The light is dimming and the dream is too." He's referring to this wonderful dream he had before everything fell apart. Then the cast sing "Go, Go, Go Joseph fight till you drop. We've read the book and you come out on top."

The other song that comes to mind is Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. "Well, maybe there's a God above As for me all I've ever learned from love Is how to shoot somebody who outdrew you But it's not a cry that you hear tonight It's not some pilgrim who claims to have seen the Light No, it's a cold and it's a very broken Hallelujah." I 'ain't a member of the PTL club but I am a member of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah chorus. I'ain't some pilgrim who claims to have seen the Light.

Pentatonix did a really nice version of that song. Recently a coworker died suddenly and it wasn't from the vaccine. Although we weren't told the cause of death we have reason to believe it was self inflicted which is always such a heart wrenching tragedy.

He was going through a divorce and he was struggling with the math. He told one coworker how can I afford rent on my own and pay child support? We've all been through that but today it's even worse. The cost of housing and rent makes living on your own and paying child support mathematically challenging. He couldn't do the math so he gave up.

I'm not recommending that course of action for anyone because it always brings regret but I can certainly understand his concerns. I keep saying I'm writing a book. I keep starting and restarting because things in the world keep changing so fast. As soon as you write something it quickly becomes outdated because there are new crazy things we have to deal with.

I don't claim to have all the answers. I don't claim to be an authority on anything. Do I know how to process loss? Yes I do. Do I know how to process discouragement? Yes I do. That is what I'm going to write about. Behind the dark clouds, the sun is still shining. Stars shine in the darkness. When the light dims, stars shine. We can't see the stars in the night sky unless it gets dark.

I've gone places and seen things and done things in the past but they don't mean sh*t. What I am is more important than what I was and what I do is more important than what I did. The future is a blank page for all of us. What we put on that page is our choice. The painting we create and the legacy we leave behind is our choice. We need to own that.

The world is full of crazy. I'm certainly not going to dwell on the crazy or the negative. I'm going to look up at the stars not down at my feet. I'm going to move forward I'm not going to move backward. I'm going to do me and not what the world tells me. The key is keep moving forward.