Nearly my entire record and CD collection is loaded on a flash drive. By plugging it into my car’s sound system and setting it to play randomly, I never know what might play at any given time. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna like it, though. 🙂

When I got in my car today, a very special song played: an anthem, if you will, of my (boomer) generation. Here are the lyrics, reprinted without permission. (I hope the owner of the copyright will forgive me.*)

Love is but a song we sing
Fear’s the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Some may come and some may go
We will surely pass
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last
We are but a moment’s sunlight
Fading in the grass

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand (listen)
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It’s there at your command

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

How did we go from this message of hope and optimism, which reached its pinnacle as performed by The Youngbloods in 1969, the summer of love, to this winter of discontent? When and how did the idealism of love and peace devolve into the maelstrom of fear, hatred, and terror that engulfs us today? How, given that admittedly naive idealism of 55 years ago, do we find ourselves, standing as we are, on the precipice of establishing an authoritarian state, as predicted by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her opinion on a recent judgement by the SCOTUS:

“The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” she both wrote and read. “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

I mourn the peace we never knew.
I grieve for the love God has given us to share with everyone that we reject and distort beyond recognition.
I lament the lives that have been and will be lost because this message was forgotten.

Come on, people.

* The song was originally written in the early 60’s by a man named Chester Powers, who performed under the name Dino Valenti. He sold the rights to hire a lawyer to get him out of a prison sentence for drug possession. (Maybe that’s part of the problem.) He recovered the rights before he died in 1994. I assume his estate owns the rights now.