Just saw Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in “Deliver Me From Nowhere.” In the movie, Bruce’s songs are a mash up of past and present. It’s all relevant when it comes to creativity. That’s sort of how life is at times, too. At least, that’s what I noticed in researching my forthcoming book: “Belonging to Bethlehem: Stories from the Christmas City’s Jewish Community,” spanning 100 years.

The backdrop events of those years show that what goes around comes around, like the merry-go-round in one scene of the movie.

It’s easy to get a little too caught up in the carnival — whether our own personal daily dramas, national politics, or anything in between. So many incidentals in the book seemed, when I began my research in 2010, mere trivia. Back then, it felt like things were on the upswing after the market instability of ’06-’08. 

A pandemic, immigration controversy, childhood disease outbreaks, civil unrest … Ancient history, right? Then we descended into 2020 and beyond.

Yet like Bruce’s river in “Hungry Heart,” the one that “don’t know where it’s flowing,” things just kept going. 

Crises don’t last.

We could take comfort in the cyclical nature of events, which offers the pendulum’s swing of escape from hard times and controversy. Things get bad, like when they “blew up the chicken man” in another of Bruce’s songs. And then they get better. Or as Bruce would say, “Maybe everything that dies, someday comes back …”

If we’re lucky, that upswing will lead to something really beautiful, as heard in the refrain and ending of that chicken man song; as seen in the creative outpouring of swirled memories, a book, an album, a win, a work project or initiative; … or a feeling, of sheer joy, when Bruce once again sings, “Meet me tonight in Atlantic City!”

Photo attribution: Kritzolina, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons; page link.

We all have the same purpose, I was surprised to read in Doctor-writer-life scientist Deepak Chopra’s “The Book of Secrets.” Chopra writes that our shared purpose is to help the world “expand and grow.” He suggests it may be counterproductive to have rigid goals and to struggle too hard to meet well-defined timelines, because of what we might miss. All you need to do, he writes, is commit to fully explore your own life. In this way will you find your part in the big picture — the ways in which you can help the world. These daffodils have got it without even trying. Why shouldn’t we?

In 1804, William Wordsworth wrote the world’s most famous daffodil poem. Read it here: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

Return to the Home Page.

 

When the interviewer asked if I’d ever dealt with union officials, it seemed best to admit: “That will be a learning area for me.” Was it ever! I privately thought of one key person as a well-known figure in the French revolution and dreaded antagonizing him; yet interacting with him helped me learn when to stand my ground and how to facilitate discussions. We all have the people with whom we’d prefer to have lunch, the recreation at which we excel, the place — be it mountaintop or sailboat — where we feel most alive or most comfortable. Let’s call that the “umbrella.” The problem is, umbrellas block the view. Outside of your umbrella are, yes, more risks, but also opportunities, whether to enjoy beauty — as I did on a recent rainy morning — reach an unforeseen audience, or grow into the people we can become. Don’t believe me? Go ahead, take a peek.

Return to the Home Page.