A song in the night

Last night I found this: "I have been of the belief that in song I have found God. Maybe I am not alone after all."

It was written as a comment on a blog I did about the earthquake in Haiti and the people there singing to get through the nights. I am not writing now about god, however, I am writing about seeking. People seeking ... well we often do not know what we are seeking and often settle for a warm bed and silky words.

I am not a terribly good writer about philosophy, but I do write about people. Elsewhere you can read about Kierkegaard and the leap of faith or leap to faith, blind or otherwise.  I'm not going to write that blog.  But listen:

Late one night, very late, going through friends of friends of friends' blogs, I found a series of blogs written by a young woman named Lonny. All of her blogs were posted late at night. She wrote about her baby who had died and her husband who had left and her children who had been taken by the State. She wrote about too much alcohol and too many drugs and then a battle to free herself. No one had commented because she had no friends. She was apparently writing for herself. It was an outpouring of ordinary yet poignant misery, a search, perhaps, a hope. She wrote that she didn't think anyone would ever read.

So, I commented and we went on to be friends, but then lost each other shortly thereafter. I commented because I have been alone at night, or during the day, lost, miserable. To one extent or another we are all alone.

(I dabbled in Buddhism for awhile; they assure me that loneliness is an illusion, I assure them it is not.)

We are alone, but we seek connection, and there is a great joy when we discover that we have found another seeker. Someone else who has struggled.  Someone else who has yearned. Someone else who has found God in song. (I am using the term "God" very loosely here. I'm not doing that blog either, yet.)

To find a kindred spirit is such a good feeling. Perhaps that is why some of us blog. We are like the creatures in Kurt Vonnegut's book "The Sirens of Titan" called Harmoniums. All day long the harmoniums sing to each other. Some sing, "Here I am, here I am." And the others sing back, "So glad you are, so glad you are."

I need to end now and I hope I have not gotten too sentimental because my writing teacher in high school would attack sentimental writing like a pit bull mauling a jogger. But, in a sense, it is a sentimental subject.

"We all need someone we can lean on." ~ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards