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an email from a friend tonight…
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dear friends. it is with the heaviest of hearts that I write to you tonight. Tomorrow morning, the UPS truck will unload 15 boxes of CD’s onto my driveway and I will finally lay eyes on Bittersweet. Tonight I had planned on sending newsletter #7-5 which chronicled my excursions through the month of May and some misc thoughts about the new CD But that will be another day. Tomorrow, many of you will turn on CNN and learn of an Iraqi plane that crashed in Eastern Iraq with 1 Iraqi and 4 Americans. One of those Americans was my brother-in-law and friend. We shared a love of Bob Dylan, Bruce Cockburn camping, chess, and fine red wine, among other things. And so tonight all is upsidedown. I ache for his wife and children and for the rest of our family. Having grown up in war and walked alongside death for the last 8 years sort of prepared me for this kind of thig - or so I thought until I had to tell my children the news. For the first time, I have a tiny glimpse at what 1661 other American families and thousands upon thousands of Iraqi families have gone through and I mourn for both nations. After the issues are discussed and the polity debated, it still all comes down to the relationships with those we love, and moments like these remind us how desperately we need to treasure them. And yet we must declare that God is good. Last year when my friend John died of ALS, I stood on my porch and watched the rain and the Song ‘bittersweet rain” was born, from which evolved the central thread of the new CD, the same one that arrives tomorrow on the same porch . Tonight, shortly after hearing the news, I returned to the porch and once again, it was raining - and the song had already been written, just a few lines of which are below. In Brian’s last email to us he wrote “I can’t wait to hear Bittersweet.” I walked out and stood in the rain and knew in my heart that he already had, along with John and a host of others seated around a very beautiful banquet table.
God willing, the sun will rise again tomorrow and should it do so, I pray it will remind us once again to cherish those we love aned to tell them we do. Blessings and peace to each of you.

Tears of angels kiss the ground, each one makes a holy sound
On every heart they make a sacred stain
Can’t begin to count the cost, Cannot comprehend the loss
Baptized by this bittersweet rain….
…. can’t begin to count the love
Falls like rain from above
Like sweet sweet rain…

david
www.davidmbailey.com