This past week a number of rednoW members and friends headed to the Sundance Film Festival to look and listen in on the quiet artistic dialogues taking place in the backroom, underneath the roar of the mass media. At this same time most of the rest of us turn our attention east to the inauguration of a new president.
Regardless of who you voted for in November, there seems to be a sense among people on both sides of the aisle that our country finds itself at a fork in the road. At this fork there is much talk - some of doomsday prophesies, and some of hope and resiliency - and all of this coming in a flood all at once.
It is in the face of these doomsday prophesies that people from both parties speak of hope and the resilience of the human spirit. It was in this environment (and the freezing cold of Washington DC) that Bruce Springsteen took the stage at the inauguration of Barack Obama. It is Springsteen's gift to be able to capture the sentiment of middle America and the people, and this gift was given in its fullest during Springsteen's performance in DC.
Springsteen took the stage with a red-clad choir to sing the title track from his album The Rising. This song came out around the time America was mourning the losses of September 11th, 2001 and most of the lyrics bring up images of hope in the face of such destruction and pain. It's powerful that Springsteen chose to sing this song on a day such as this. And it is here that we see why art is so powerful.
This song seems to capture the hope of a new day without discounting the pain of the present. Trying doing that in an expository essay. Capturing the beauty that seems to only come in the face of pain Springsteen sings:
A dream of life comes to me
Like a catfish dancin' on the end of my line
Sky of blackness and sorrow ( a dream of life)
Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)
Sky of glory and sadness ( a dream of life)
Sky of mercy, sky of fear ( a dream of life)
Sky of memory and shadow ( a dream of life)
Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight
Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life
There is something beautiful in Springsteen's description of the paradox that grace presupposes barrenness. And even in the cold and anxiety our nation finds itself in Springsteen feels the tugs of hope "like a catfish dancing on the end of [his] line."
Enjoy the beauty of this performance and the wonder of it all at this time in our nation's history.
