While My Guitar Gently Weeps

This haunting tune by George Harrison strikes me as particularly poignant this week in the Oklahoma City metro, as the city of Moore and other metro communities experienced yet again the horrors that Mother Nature can bring. Some (Westoro Baptist Church, Kansas) submit that the tornadic devastation represents the wrath of god. Others count god's blessings for those who survived, but (by inconsistent logic, I'm thinking) don't mention god's wrath upon those who didn't or were otherwise devastated. Others submit that Mother Nature just is what she is, not invoking a deity one way or another. See this CNN Wolf Blitzer video about that. Count me in the latter group. You are, of course, free to take your pick.

Regardless of your religious inclination, this week has been bad, very very bad, in Oklahoma City. It has been yet another week that Oklahoma City has gently weeped.

Above, While My Guitar Gently Weeps was performed at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in which George Harrison, Prince, Jackson Browne, The Dells, Bob Seger, Traffic, and ZZ Top were inductees. In the above tribute to George Harrison by Tom Petty, Dhani Harrison (George Harrison's son, to the right of Tom Petty), Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood, and Prince (in the red hat), the melancholy tune was beautifully performed.

Our deepest thoughts, grief, sadness, and yes for those who are religiously inclined to claim either god's damnation or the salvation of those who did or not die or otherwise suffer devastation, our prayers, are shared around the world.

By this time, you've already seen images of the massive destruction in Oklahoma City's sister-city, Moore, earlier this week, and no need exists to repeat those images here. There is really nothing more to say or to see, other than to say that my best thoughts and prayers are out there, too, for whatever they may be worth.

May God bless and mend all those whose hearts are broken and may the dead amongst us have everlasting love and peace.

This is an unbeliever's hope and wish ... or maybe not quite an unbeliever ... that, and that you might like to listen to and see J.S. Bach's While Sheep May Safely Graze ...


... and conclude that not all is wrong with the world, notwithstanding our present and most desperate and lamenting grief.