The Spiritual Woman Forum Playlist Song #1 "Hymn # 101" ..

I'm going to periodically give you an essay of sorts regarding songs chosen for the Playlist. Sometimes they will be personal accounts, sometimes brief artist profiles, sometimes just general impressions.   "Hymn # 101" has special meaning for me. 2009 was the year for me in which everyhting both fell apart, and was magical, at the same time. I met and befriended a lot of special people who are still in my life. I even fell in love a couple of times that summer; both times with members of the WC. One I have never met in person; the other is currently living with me while we plan a life together.   The one I never met has a special place in my heart, even still. He had a lot of things go wrong that summer-fall, and ended up on a trek to find himself that I am not sure he is completely back from. Our chance to meet never materialized. I was listening one day, then, to fellow SWG writer Vesa Lee's Playlist, and ran across this beautiful song. The lyrics immediately reminded me of my dear friend and his struggles with his father's death, and other things. I sent him the song, and he treasured it. The last I checked, it had made its way from Vesa's list, to mine, to his, to my current significant other's, and remains on all of ours.   It is a beautiful and pure song, sung with the heartache and frustration of a young man facing all that life has thrown at him. Its power transcends time and gender. Take a moment to listen to such stirring lines as "I've come to know the wishlist of my father", "I've come to test the timbers of my heart", and "but will you recognize my face/ when God's awful grace/ strips me of my jacket and my vest/ and reveals all the treasure in my chest?"   I think most of us can shed a soft tear over a man in our lives who has struggled against unseen foes in war and life with no resolution.