Love and the Broken “Hallelujah”

Still from the Pentatonix video “Hallelujah”.
(Image courtesy of Billboard.)

[EDIT: In all the fretting and concern over the election, I completely missed the news that Leonard Cohen died Monday, Nov. 7, at the age of 82. Now I’m glad that I had the chance to write this post before his passing. Shalom, Leonard, and thank you for this gift you gave us.]

Recently, the Texas a cappella quintet Pentatonix released a cover of Leonard Cohen’s 1984 song “Hallelujah”, which at 300 covers and counting may be the most re-recorded single in popular music history. My sister Peggy came across the official video on a Christian website and linked the page to her Facebook feed. Our parents sang in barbershop choruses when we were growing up, and we both sang in high school choruses, so we both appreciate good vocal music.

To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever listened to the song the whole way through before. I’ve seen Shrek only once — the penalty of never having your own children and living hundreds of miles away from your siblings’ kids; since I didn’t remember it was featured in the soundtrack, it must not have made a big impression on me at the time. Since then, I’d heard the first and second verse here and there, but not performed in any way that would grab my attention. But I’ll listen to anything Pentatonix records, even “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. They’re that outstanding.

Listening to the Pentatonix version did more than wring out tears. I realized I’d heard the song before, but I’d never listened to it. It’s more than a love song; it’s an epiphany.

This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled, but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by “Hallelujah.” That regardless of what the impossibility of the situation is, there is a moment when you open your mouth and you throw open your arms and you embrace the thing and you just say, “Hallelujah! Blessed is the name.”…

 The only moment that you can live here comfortably in these absolutely irreconcilable conflicts is in this moment when you embrace it all and you say, “Look, I don’t understand a f**king thing at all — Hallelujah!” That’s the only moment that we live here fully as human beings. (Leonard Cohen, quoted in Rolling Stone, “Book Excerpt: Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ in ‘The Holy or the Broken’”)

Pelosi gives us a stupid to cherish

Strong emotional reactions fade over time, even outrage. And as they fade, politicians' attempts to maintain them for their political advantage become more strained until eventually they say, or sometimes do, something laughably stupid. This is usually a pretty reliable sign that the reaction has run its course, and the political and economic concerns of everyday citizens have mostly returned to where they were prior to the event.

Life as we know it didn't end with Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. So we now return you to your regularly scheduled existential angst.

Except that every now and again, in the painful effort to keep the rage at white heat, a politician will let fly a very special kind of stupid. A stupid that, if you could take a picture of it, would be a "Kodak moment". We actually had a couple this last week; dishonorable mention goes to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who demoted Associate Justice Clarence Thomas from token black man to just another white man on the Supreme Court bench. There may be African-Americans who think Thomas is an "Oreo", but that's not for any white man to say ... not out loud, not in front of cameras, and especially not a Senate Majority Leader. (Note: I have a lot of respect for AJ Thomas; he's much more than AJ Antonin Scalia's "mini-me".)

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is no stranger to stupid under pressure. The brightest gem in her personal collection is, "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it." (Mediaite has tried to defend the statement as taken relentlessly out of context. But the fact of the matter is, PPACA was and still is available on the Net in its entirety for anyone to read "away from the fog of controversy", so anyone could have discovered how awesome it wasn't before it was passed into law. Sorry, no cigar.) She's also let fly the occasional puzzler in the effort to reconcile her public stances on certain topics with her self-identified Catholicism, though none of "Pope Pelosi's" pronouncements on these matters have been endearingly dumb.

Obama Speaks Truism, Conservatives Dismayed

You know the campaign season is just about over when the two sides have to scrape stuff off the sidewalk to get angry about.  So here we go:

(Source: The Weekly Standard)


Okay, here's the line that causes the fuss: "We don’t believe that anybody is entitled to success in this country."  Even read apart from the rest of the paragraph, it's nothing.  Obama, darn him to heck, is right: we don't believe people are entitled to success.  People are free to work for success, to earn it; you don't get to succeed just by showing up and showing your birth certificate.  And that's what Obama says: "But we do believe in opportunity.  We believe in a country where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded, and everybody is getting a fair shot and everybody is doing their fair share and everybody is playing by the same rules."

Look, you know I'm no fan of the President, and that I have no intention of voting for him next month.  His presidency has been a disaster from Day 1, and I say this as a very vocal critic of his dumb-bunny predecessor.  But do you have to get worked up about everything that falls out of Obama's mouth?

PRES. OBAMA (recorded): "So I took a shower this morning ...."
RUSH LIMBAUGH: "Can you believe Obama said THAT?  Has he got something against taking baths, for Pete's sake?  Is that something only the capitalist élite do?  He's too good to sit down in the water with his washcloth and bar of Zest?  I suppose he has one of those effeminate poofy things you pour [mocking tone] 'body wash' onto.  How did this wierdo get elected President?"

 GET A GRIP!