THE SMALLEST ARC

          I’m going to a concert this weekend, a guitar guy of course who writes his own songs but none of them sound anything like the formula driven doo-da’s that come out of Nashville. There doesn’t seem to be any rule for line length or breaks and he tells his songs with only a hint at a melody. He is a musical storyteller and I like that. Way back in another century, Sam Baker was a guitar playing bank examiner from Austin, TX. On a train in Peru, on his way to Machu Picchu a terrorist bomb exploded in the luggage rack over his head. Everyone in his compartment was killed except for Sam. He suffered brain damage, hearing loss, kidney failure, gangrene and after a multitude of surgeries he still shouldn’t have survived but he did. 

I went to YouTube and found an interview he did recently. It touched on his music but centered on the bomb experience and how that had influenced his career. He said the one thing that permeated it all was empathy, the feeling and caring for those suffering and dying around him. “I think before that I was pretty self contained with a narrow view of the world. I never sensed others suffering,” he said. He made the distinction between viewing the world and sensing it, as viewing had some element of choice. Suffering and dying were going on all around him in the intensive care unit of the Peruvian hospital but he couldn't do anything, couldn't move. He had a lot of time to think, a lot of questions to chew on. “How does this lottery work, who lives and who dies?” He said he’d come to peace with living, carrying on for those who died. “It’s not a burden, it’s a gift.” The gift he spoke of is a value, to carry forward, to help others who are struggling. “All of us, everyone, we are living on borrowed time. We’ve all missed tragedy by the smallest fraction, the smallest arc of electricity has saved us, so it’s not just me; it’s not just me.” He felt that his job is to reciprocate that gift in some sort of fair trade, energy and good will for everybody. He had come out from a dark depression to the realization that we are all at the mercy of someone else’s dreams, that today is beautiful and that forgiveness and gratitude are miraculous. “I’m always where I need to be," he said, "and I believe that my will is a handicap.” 

I’ll be in the balcony on Friday night, listening to Baker’s take on what makes the world go round and how people treat each other. I've missed tragedy by the smallest fraction and we’ve struggled on different hooks but our stories have a common thread. The difference is that he tells it so much better than I could. His song, ‘Baseball’ is awesome and I hope for sure it is on his play list.