the river

Springsteen's song 'The River' speaks of disappointment. Dreams dashed. Hope deferred. Heartbroken. It didn't turn out. Tell me now 'is a dream a lie if it don't come true or is it something worse...that drives us down to the river'. I think believing, hoping, trusting, grasping for something that doesn't turn out  is 'something' worse than a lie. It can break our spirit, our heart and in the worst of circumstances our body and our soul.

Believing in something can bring us down to the river. And Jesus drowned there. And so do I. We all go under in the sea of despond. In a horror of sorrow. Whether it is on a mud-caked mount or a wind wrecked sea doesn't matter. It's the dying dream which tells the story. And don't you think He was disappointed. And don't you think it was hard. And don't we want to make it better. Don't we want to sooth the hurt and aren't we eager to look away from the tragedy. 'I act like I don't remember, Mary acts like she don't care'. And we certainly avoid the river at all cost. But it is waiting for us. Memories haunt us, trail us, shadow us till they catch us.

Here it is. Crushed and broken. A bruised reed. They crucified my friend. No, not them. This diappointment. This dream dashed. This thing called the fall.

It didn't turn out. For a tragedy to be true there has to be a low. It is in the bottem of the river.