Dylan on a Sunday

I walked out of church today and found a flyer on my car that warned of the last days (not placed there by someone from the church I attend). Nuclear bombs, health epidemics, dogs and cats sleeping together (I added that last one, a tribute to Bill Murray in Ghost Busters. Go ahead, fact check me). You know, the usual stuff. Stuff focused on the end of all things. We're all history.

Now I like apocalyptic imagery as much as the next guy. Seriously. It says, in essence, that what what peeks out at the edges of life cannot be reconciled to anything. It just doesn't make any damned sense. And it doesn't. But there's an alternative coming. Not a day that's just the logical outcome of this one, but a new day bringing an alternative history that will bring resolution.

In some churches, we sing this song, Days of Elijah, where the Lord is coming riding on a cloud. We sing it joyfully thinking its all glory and bliss. But prophets like Ezekiel, Daniel, and Dylan know different. It might be our salvation, but its in the form of a hard rain.

So, this Sunday's Dylan song to live with, in honor of the warning fixed to my windshield, is A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.