"My Empire of Dirt"

"I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel..." These troubling, biting words issue forth from an old man dressed in black, with gnarled hands, a face cracked and creased by decades of sorrow and struggle, and that raspy, gravelly tired but strong voice. A voice that seems to roll like thunder through the valley of trial, which echos off of the jagged granite walls of the mountain of pain. Yet, it is those piercing knowing eyes that warn you he knows more than the words he is singing. One could lose himself in those sad eyes and immediately know beyond a doubt the Singer has lived its message. "I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel..."

Have I become so calloused that I no longer fell the pain and sorrow around me? Or is it just that I have become "comfortably numb?" Do I see Issiah or Nick? Do I feel Shelia's struggle with MS? What about the brothers and sisters who are unemployed or underemployed? The hurt and pain of a rebellious child or a family member battling addiction? Do I look the other way when I see battered women and abused children? What about the plight of young parents trying with all their strength to rear their children in an increasingly hostile world? Maybe I needed to be reminded and forced to, "I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel!"

In the chorus of the song the following line, "you can have it all, my empire of dirt..." drives the point of my disconnectedness to the plight of others home. I fear I have become so busy building castles of stone with ramparts of diamonds and streets of gold, that I have forgotten that all these things are simply dirt? I have become obsessed with constructing emerald cities with spires that touch the heavens and whose entrances are gates of pearl and yet have neglected, "the tired, poor, the huddled masses, yearning to breath free..." I think I have come to a place where I must say, "Here I am, turn the page..."

Yes, this is what I believe, "you can have it all, my empire of dirt."

Just some things to think about along the way!!!

Bob