ANGEL FROM MONTGOMERY

I like music. I like the singer/songwriter John Prine, and I like his song, Angel from Montgomery. What's not to like about lyrics that say:


"If dreams were thunder, lighting was desire, this old house would have burned down a long time ago."


A house full of dreams and desires -- I like that too.


Picture a house jammed wall-to-wall with dreams and desires of those who live there. A Norman Rockwell painting? Now that you've pictured it, what does a house full of dreams and desires sound like? Harder to imagine, isn't it? It's harder because so often our dreams and desires go unspoken, not just to others but to ourselves.


Early in the life of your dreams, they may seem too fragile to expose to the outside world, so you hold them inside. When it's time to consider letting them out, you worry about what others will think. You over-analyze; you commit "dreamicide."


Without the energy derived from a passionate pursuit of dreams, what of significance gets accomplished in our lives? We are rewarded by society for performing skills effectively and efficiently. Precious few others in our lives seem to care what our dreams are, but that's no excuse for our not caring. As John Prine goes on to say:


"Just give me one thing that I can hang on to. To believe in this living is just a hard way to go."


The living out of other people's dreams, resulting in a lack of personal passion, can also be seen in another line from Angel from Montgomery:


"How the hell can a person go to work in the morning, come home in the evening, and have nothing to say?"


That's not too hard to understand. Why would a person want to talk about unfulfilled dreams and desires? Why would a person want to talk about spending their unrecoverable hours fulfilling someone else's dreams and desires?


If "dreams were thunder, lightning was desire" in your house, would your house be engulfed in a raging inferno, or would you just be inconvenienced by a slight warming trend?



Lesson: Dreams are forged by the fire of passion or doused by the waters of indifference.