A Yellow Ledbetter Kind of Day

The morning started out foggy, hazy, depressing.  It was hard to keep the eyes open.

Then the clouds shrank to polka dots in a brilliant blue sky.  It was hard to keep working.

The sun began to shine, reflecting off the changing leaves and casting its golden glow over the browning but still green grass.

I kept working, but it seemed nothing was getting accomplished.

I escaped from the madness of my day during lunch and took a seat in my car.  Rolling down the windows, I turned on "Yellow Ledbetter" by Pearl Jam and turned up the volume.  I heard the song live just a week ago, so my connection to it feels deeper somehow.

As the sun warmed my cheeks and the breeze cooled them off, I let the riffs from Mike McCready's guitar and the indecipherable ramblings of Eddie Vedder's soulful voice wash over me:

I said, "I don't, I don't know whether I was the boxer or the bag."

I honestly don't know these days, whether I'm the boxer or the bag.  The harder I fight, the more it feels like life is beating up on me.  I guess that's just part of the process known as "living," and particularly that phase called, "being an adult."

Anyway, I know this music, and I know the beauty of the day.  It's a powerful thing to experience music with the people that make it come alive, and it's a powerful thing to experience beauty with the One who gave you life.  I've gotten to do both of those things this week, so that's something.

But sometimes I have nothing left to give but frustrated tears.  I know deep down, in my heart and soul, that there is more to life than the failures of today.  And I think I just need to pray and listen to this song with the windows down a few more times to let that truth sink in.