The “ask, ask, ask” I’m talking about, in the title of this entry, is a quote from Marshall Rosenberg. I like it. I hear it as in “seek and ye shall receive,” Matthew 7:7. Actually Google tells me that a part of the Matthew quote that’s less familiar is “ask and ye shall receive,” so that’s one more “coincidence” to marvel at.
Seems like all I have to do is to start venting about my need for compassion and empathy, and here it comes back at me writ large, in a way I could not have foreseen. A minute ago I checked my e-mail. There I find a New Year’s chocolate-kiss of connection and joy, thanks to my friend Julie. It’s a version of John Lennon’s IMAGINE, done by that fabulous outfit PLAYING FOR CHANGE, have you seen these? They’re so excellent – videos of musicians all around the world, playing songs together. Take a look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS6gNxp-RI0
This particular vid means a lot to me. I am an out-of-my-head John Lennon fan, thirty years after he’s been gone by now on December 8th. Once, when my husband and I were having a particularly bad time of it, I fled our home in London and stayed a while with friends in Oxford. The IMAGINE LP had just come out (1971) – I remember John and Yoko all in white, I think it was, playing a white piano in an empty room –
And look how memory works. Down all those years, it seems I share that memory with at least one other person, according to Wikipedia. . . . the white piano, John and Yoko in the empty room . . . .
Imagine, imagine, imagine, imagine, imagine, I played and re-played that song so many times surely I wore out the track. . . .
And here it is today, New Year’s Day 2011, after I wrote earlier this morning about my thirst for the kind of deep caring and vision I once heard in IMAGINE, all those years ago as I sat listening and re-listening to IMAGINE, tears pouring down my face, in so much pain about loving my husband, remembering how hard it was to connect with love in that moment –
Here comes IMAGINE back to me again, just as green – just as clear, as clean, as white as the white piano in the empty room – brought back to me by a dear friend of today.
And this time even including Malians, the West African country of my heart.
And one more thing. Surfing around with IMAGINE as I write this, I find that the United States Supreme Court quoted lyrics from John’s great anthem to vision and beauty, on Page 13 of Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (2/25/09), an opinion that also, on the same page, takes note of the Peace Fountain in Fayetteville, Arkansas, from where I’m writing right now – the Peace Fountain done by my friend and friend of so many here, Hank Kaminsky. http://www.hankkaminsky.com/
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-665.pdf
See what happens if you live long enough.
Happy New Year, one and all.
catself 