Going further

Have I been too far? Have I seen too much?
Working in the shadows of the big Ferris wheel ...

One of the songs that’s been percolating through my consciousness over the past two years is Tom Russell’s Don’t Look Down. I first remember hearing it at Joe’s Pub in New York back in August 2008, then again when I caught him a couple of months later in Vancouver. It talks about the challenges of living in the world, being grateful for the best while walking away from the worst (Russell provides his own take on the song here). The song includes nods to Vanity Fair (in a peculiarly American vein) and the escape from Sodom –

Tasted lipstick and nylons, seen the mental asylum

Turned my back on the violence before I turned into salt.

Russell’s song comes back to me as I think of a prayer said over my father as he lay dying:

We humbly commend this thy servant, our dear brother, into thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful Creator, and most merciful Saviour. Wash him, we pray thee, in the blood of the immaculate Lamb, that was slain to take away the sin of the world; that whatsoever defilements he may have contracted in the midst of this wicked world, through the lusts of the flesh or the wiles of Satan, being purged and done away ... (Book of Common Prayer, 1962)

There it is again: the challenge of living in the world, the need for redemption of what was in hope of what will be. While it’s sometimes hard to know what our parents experienced, one of best lessons we can take, and give to our own children, is a due consciousness of our shortcomings, confidence to start anew. We’re not always the best we seem to our children, often walking a tight rope above the worst we know ourselves to be in pursuit of a better example.

I said don’t look down, the ground might be burning.

We’re all turning the corner now, we might run into God ...

While none of us gets out of this world alive, a steady focus on living as best we know how – and persisting at that best – is one of the better gifts we could give our kids. We could certainly do worse. It’s what I hope to show my kids, even as I try to honour the hopes my father cherished for me.