I rarely re-publish my newsletter introductions but striving to come up with a relevant subject for this time of the year, I couldn’t help going back to the following piece I wrote two years ago based on Leonard Cohen’s song. Meanwhile, I am working on my year-end report our vision for next year.

— Sina.

You Want It Darker

Leonard Cohen

If you are a dealer, I’m out of the game

If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame

If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame

You want it darker

We kill the flame

Poet musicians like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen have a way of getting us in touch with subjects we rather avoid, like love, lust, betrayal, and death.

I am a fan of Leonard Cohen, knowing he possessed his own shadow side and dark demons. However, like a well-crafted wine, Cohen matured with age, expanding from subjects like love and sex to death and dying; from aging to sage’ing.

We should adopt Cohen’s last song as an anthem for our dark times. Using the biblical story of God giving Abraham and Sarah a son in their old age, and then asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to Him, Cohen sings the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead (magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name), and then tells us how to deal with dark times like this by saying Hineni, Hineni, Hineni. Here I am. Here I am. Here I stand.

There is a lover in the story

But the story’s still the same

There’s a lullaby for suffering

And a paradox to blame

But it’s written in the scriptures

And it’s not some ideal claim

You want it darker

We kill the flame

It is winter. Nights are longer. The coronavirus is leaving considerable destruction in its wake. These are dark times, but this is not humanity’s first or worst dark period, so let us use the advice of our prophets, poets, and philosophers to deal with dark times like this.

Hineni, Hineni, Hineni

Here I stand, resolute as always, committed to the vision of building an enlightened community.

— Sina.

PS. You can read the lyrics HERE, and listen to the song HERE.