"Tramps Like Us . . ."

Just finished Bruce Springsteen's book, Born to Run. What a great book. No wonder his music makes such a powerful connection with so many of us. At the end of his story, Springsteen offers these words to sum up his own sense of calling and purpose. I can certainly identify with his words, maybe we all can.

I have fought my whole life, studied, played, worked, because I wanted to hear and know the whole story, my story, our story, and understand as much of it as I could. I wanted to understand in order to free myself of its most damaging influences, its malevolent forces, to celebrate and honor its beauty, its power, and to be able to tell it well to my friends, my family, and to you. I don't know if I've done that, and the devil is always just a day away, but I know this was my young promise to myself, to you. This, I pursued as my service. This, I presented as my long and noisy prayer, my magic trick. Hoping it would rock your very soul and then pass on, its spirit rendered, to be read, heard, sung and altered by you and your blood, that it might strengthen and help make sense of your story. Go tell it.