Fate Chance Faith

Not very long ago, a group called the Lumineers was in my ears as we would be riding in the car while my wife was receiving tunes on her Iphone. I was quite amused with their song that had this chorus: “Nobody knows, how the story ends; nobody knows. nobody knows.” Hmm. . . something to ponder there. I mean. . . nobody knows. Selah. maybe, maybe not. I read an ancient book every morning that does tell me how the story ends. The dynamic conclusion discloses an account of the Son of Man who suffered a criminal death and then Resurrected and lived to tell about it. You believe that? If you do, I’ve got some real estate in heaven I’ll tell you about. Later. But ss I was saying, nobody knows exactly how the story ends. . . is, seems to me, what the Lumineers were pondering, so profoundly and yet so simply in their song Then there’s the question of Time. A big band rock group, Chicago, from back in the day, 1960’s . . . presented this question to us boomer radio-listeners: “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?” I mean, it was a great song, with a lot of soul and rhythm and some serious brass and horns backing up the soulful singer and the guitar and the bass and all that stuff that bands have had ever since Light’nin’ Hopkins picked up a guitar and Louie picked up his horn and God only know who showed up for that great festival of music that had started back in the day with Francis Scott Key and Aaron Copland and Duke Ellington and Duke Ellington and Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller and Muddy Waters and B.B. King and the Everly Brothers and Elvis and Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul, and Mary and Joan and Judy and Bob and then the Fab Four suddenly manifested out of the misty white cliffs of merry old England and they turned rock and pop into something else entirely and then one day Ringo and Paul were sitting on an airplane, when Paul said to Ringo. “Please pass the salt and pepper.” And Ringo later explained that he thought Paul had said, “Sergeant Pepper.” And the rest is rock ’n roll history. John later sang: “You say you want a revolution? Well, you know, we all wanta change the world!” Yes, John, we do, but you guys changed the world of music. But that’s neither there. I’m starting to see now, at 73, how it was for my grandparents and my step-grandparents, back in the day when Duke and Dorsey and all them big bands were doing their song and love songs were the heart of soul of America after our guys came back from running the nazis back in their holes and the Japs into being the guinea pigs of the nuclear age. But what can you say? They asked for it. . . Pearl Harbor. . . I know: that’s water under the bridge of history. Read ‘em and weep, Read it all and discern a lesson or two, but, but what good does it do when you’re only one grain on the beaches of mankind. . . Normandy beach or California beach or the Edmund Fitzgerald or the Titanic or the Mayflower or the Ships at Ellis Island. . . catching view, as Bro Paul did, of Lady Liberty with her lamp at the golden door awaiting all those huddled masses yearning to be free! Now, but as I was saying earlier, there’s this life mystery wrapped in an enigma, like the Soviet Union used to be. Now Russia— its’s just a tragedy wrapped in a putin pushch. But I digress. Somebody needs to run that whacko off of his high horse before he pulls another 1938-45 clusterfeud. But as I was sayin’. . . So I’m ruminating on this Fate or Chance or Faith quandary. Which is it? Well, its like. . . both, and, or maybe its, since nobody knows how the story ends, the best choice is to go with the Eternity Plan, the one introduced to mankind by the man. who died a criminal death and then lived to tell about it. Then you can be released from all the complexity of this life, released from the flying fickle finger of Fate; you can be liberated from the limitations of mere luck, delivered from diabolical doubt and destruction. Back in the day, Ringo’s other buddy, John, intoned a tune of musical historical observation about a “lucky man who made the grade” who “blew his mind out in a car. He hadn’t noticed that the lights had changed”. . . but hey! and, nobody knows how that story ended, comprendo? Nobody knows. We know only that, according to the human experience, the “story” for each person does end. . But moving right along, because, life does that y’know. . .

I recall that John also had sung in that same “Day in the Life” song: “I read the news today oh boy; the English army had just won the war; a crowd of people turned away, but i just had to look, having read the book.” John’s musico-poetico profundity rings my chimes, which is why, I suppose, that Lonfon scene. . . described as it was in John’s doleful tune . . . became, after many. and many a year had passed . . . the scenario for the opening scene of my Smoke, a 300-page novel, which was ignored by random house and harper collins but published by Amazon KDP. Thank you, Jeff Bezos. But as I was sayin’. Nobody knows how the story begins. . . except maybe Ernest Hemingway, or Orwell, or Huxley. They’re gone now, but I’m still waiting, and watcher (although I am not one of infamous Watchers. . . just another fool on the hill who sees the sun going down and the world spinning ‘round. King of Soul