tears / another good book

So this morning I was driving down to Newark from home in Oakland, and I've started listening to the classical music station sometimes. It puts me in a zone and stops me from getting annoyed at Greg & Fernando on 92.7. They played the theme from the soundtrack of Big Country (which is apparently a Western filmed int eh 1950s). And I just started crying. There was something about the optimism and open space expressed in the music. It was a little crazy, but I needed it.
For the past couple days, I've been heavy with the weight of what it means to be at war, to be part of yet another generation that will bear responsibility for being home to returning veterans--young men and women scarred by experiences I can't really comprehend. Not to mention we still bear the responsibility for being home (or failing to be home) for so many Vietnam veterans.
There was something about that music that touched me heart and reminded me of the hope I see around me. I don't get hope from heaven or God or the idea that goodness will win out in the end. What gives me hope is that people survive. Impossibly, people survive incomprehensible experiences, and some even heal. Maybe that's what Christianity is trying to say with the whole Jesus and resurrection thing, but I can tell you that if you come down to the VA, you'll meet something far more powerful than that.

PS -- Among the string of good books I've read, I'm just starting Jonathan Shay's "Achilles in Vietnam." He's a psychologist who works with Vietnam-era veterans suffering from severe combat trauma. In this book, he writes about how Homer's Iliad, the story of Achilles at war, reflects the reality of war combat trauma long before psychology was even a field. He extensively quotes veterans in their own words and then shows how this mythology reflects a truth that is beyond a reflection of mere events. Hot damn, that's what mythology ought to be about, if it's about anything.