From Bob Siegel
April 10, 2010
The Morning of Good Friday
I write this morning from Spring Valley, California, (essentially San Diego). It is pouring rain and has not stopped since yesterday. In fact, it has been raining several evenings in a row. The rain is torrential!
I love when it rains (at least now that I live in a house with a roof that doesn’t leak). I especially enjoy watching the rain at night.
These past few days, a song keeps playing in my head, “A Rainy Night In Georgia.” Some of you will remember this popular hit which premiered in 1969 but played repeatedly in the early 1970’s. If not, you can always find it in radio-television heaven, otherwise known as YouTube.
Some of the lyrics say:
“It seems like it’s raining all over the world,
I feel like it’s raining all over the world.”
A beautiful song! As I said, I live in San Diego, but I WAS in Georgia with a close friend back in 2006. We flew out there because of a health crisis going on in his life and a related healing ministry. Another friend who lived in the area picked us up at the airport and drove us around town the entire week we were there.
I remember one night sitting in the back of the car while we were driving through town. “A Rainy Night in Georgia” was playing on the radio. As it happened, there really was strong rain going on at the same time.
The insufferable romantic in me found it quite fascinating; I was listening to a song about Georgia, while in Georgia, while it was nighttime in Georgia, while it was raining in Georgia.
(Any of you who actually live in Georgia at the moment are probably getting bored about now.)
So why do I mention this? There is a melancholy about the music and lyrics of that once hit single. Because of my friend and also for personal matters going on in my life, I was feeling melancholy anyway. The song amplified it.
Back to the present: This same melancholy (embedded in the music pouring through my mind) hits me each night as I watch the rain, and I feel like it actually IS raining all over the world!
Not literally, of course; the rain is a symbol. But there IS a connection all over our country, indeed all over most of the world!
I personally experience this connection in the sense that it seems so strange, frustrating, and wonderful all at the same time to realize that my friends and family, wherever they may reside, are sheltered in their homes like me, thinking about the future of our country, like me.
While many of us hold varying opinions about whether or not this should be happening, what the government should or should not be doing, the future of our country, etc., the fact remains, we are going through a common experience.
Experiences of this magnitude are rare in life and this particular experience is unprecedented in history!
It should give us pause.
As humans, we are communal creatures, literally created for community. How ironic, how remarkable, that in the midst of such mass separation, we remain connected. I am not merely talking about the Internet, our temporary window to the world. Granted, many of us are getting to know friends and acquaintances better than we ever did before through Zoom, Facebook, etc. Part of this is because we have slowed down our hectic lives. We had no choice. But we notice something good coming out of it; we find ourselves grateful for the times we live in and its a marvelous technology, knowing all too well that our ancestors throughout history were offered no such consolation.
Again, the Internet is only a small part, maybe even the smallest part of the connection I am describing.
The mere contemplation of our joint situation is spiritual for me.
Of course, there are other matters on my mind right now:
I am so grateful to be in a nice home with a wife whom I love, who cares every bit as much for me.
However, as the rain continues pouring, I find myself increasingly thinking about those of you (indeed, those all over the world) who are stuck in small apartments, in some cases all alone, maybe even alone without the Internet.
Not to mention situations far worse!
Not everybody is sitting this out comfortably while watching Netflix!
Some do not even have homes.
Some live in impoverished countries.
Some live in impoverished neighborhoods in THIS country.
For many of us, feeling stir-crazy has been our only complaint.
We must remember that others would give their right arms to be in our positions:
They may be sick with this virus.
They may be sick with something else.
They may be dying.
They may be laid off from their jobs.
They may have lost their jobs altogether.
Anyway…if you were waiting for something profound, I will undoubtedly sound anti climactic while concluding this running prosaic slice of life tunnel into my heart, except to say that since nothing comparable has ever happened before,I am thinking of all my friends (both on and off Facebook).
My dear friends, those whom I know, those whom I don’t know…
Warmest wishes and prayers to all of you.
For my Christian friends, and family, Happy Easter!
For my Jewish friends and family, Be blessed this Passover!
For my friends who call themselves “Christian,” mostly for traditional reasons, yet find it bizarre when they hear phrases such as “saved” or “born again,” Happy Easter to you on whatever level you celebrate!
For my atheist and agnostic friends, I wish you safety, whatever you may believe or not believe. I pray for you; I pray for your well-being, regardless of whether or not you personally find any use for prayer.
Ditto to those of you who follow other religions, or other beliefs.
We will get through this!
Bob Siegel
NOTE: This prose was originally written on April 10, 2020, sent out over Facebook, and later, Email. The editor of San Diego Rostra asked for permission to publish it on April 11. Later that same day, it was picked up by News Break.
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