It Tolls For Thee

For some reason, I’m still upset by the February 17, 2013, suicide of Country Music star Mindy McCready. MindyTenThousand

I didn’t know Mindy personally. I had barely even heard of her before her suicide. I knew her as most everyone else did: by her mug shots and the barrage of sad media stories in the months leading up to her death.

According to her entry on Wikipedia,

Overall, McCready’s four studio albums accounted for twelve singles on the Billboard country singles charts. This figure includes the Number One hit “Guys Do It All the Time”, as well as the Top Ten hits “Ten Thousand Angels” and “A Girl’s Gotta Do (What a Girl’s Gotta Do)”. Although she had not charted a single since 2002, McCready received significant media coverage regarding her personal life. McCready’s fifth studio album, I’m Still Here, was released in March 2010.

Five studio albums? A Number One hit? Twelve singles? Another article stated she had sold over three million albums. So she was not someone without considerable talent. Or beauty. How did her life come to this?

Something about her life, and tragic death, has Continue reading

Love

Lately, I’ve struggled with this question:

How does “only love dispels hate” work in the face of mortal danger?

This question has become like a mantra to me. It occupies much of my waking moments, and several of my conversations. It haunts me.

What prompted my consternation is the recent spate of violence in the Middle East and the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya. How would “only love dispels hate” have prevented that tragedy, and stemmed the wave of terrorism?

This has weighed on me heavily.

Knowing my spiritual and emotional turmoil, a wise friend sent me this cartoon:

I like that. And it immediately helped soothe my troubled thoughts.

But it did not totally answer my question because Continue reading