Gimme Shelter

Oh, a storm is threat'ning My very life today
If I don't get some shelter Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away
War, children, it's just a shot away It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away It's just a shot away

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin' Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet Mad bull lost its way
War, children, it's just a shot away It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away It's just a shot away

Rape, murder! It's just a shot away It's just a shot away
Rape, murder! It's just a shot away It's just a shot away
Rape, murder! It's just a shot away It's just a shot away

The floods is threat'ning My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter Or I'm gonna fade away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

I tell you love, sister, it's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away Kiss away, kiss away
--Words and Music by M. Jagger and K. Richards

A few months ago for about 2 weeks I had the Rolling Stones song Gimme Shelter roaring through my head. I say roaring because it practically never ceased its assault on my attention. It was with me during the day and even if I happened to wake up in the night. When I opened my eyes in the morning the serenade began anew each day.

Don’t get me wrong – I like the song. It’s my favorite Stone’s tune. I vaguely remember it as a child around 1970 or so. It was a song that sort of characterized the Vietnam War. The song seemed to be about war in fact, about that age, that time. So why was it on cruise control in my head?

War, children, it’s just a shot away!

It was about war, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what Mick meant when he sang, Oh a storm is threatening my very life today. If I don’t get some shelter I’m gonna fade away?

It certainly epitomized the thoughts and emotions of a generation of people who saw the fruitlessness of that war. Oh wait, police action. At 12, I watched the news in the evening, saw the destruction of villages and people, of jungle and life. Sure seemed like war to me. People died in war and that was what was happening every day in Viet Nam. Did ‘police action’ make it less violent, less deadly? It didn’t seem that way to me.

And yet not seeming to learn from our mistakes we as a nation are embroiled in yet another war, and the same sad consequences are spread across the news every day. So maybe that was why the song was running rampantly through my head. Again, loyal American’s are going off to war, to fight in a country that isn’t even sure it wants us there. There are points for and against that war and it’s not for me to say what’s right or wrong. I don’t support the war – but I whole-heartedly support our troops. I can’t even imagine the courage it takes to go to a place to fight for the rights of people who want to kill you for your protection and yet troops do it every single day.

So was the song repeating through my mind as a reminder that we are at war again? That precious life on all sides of this combat are being recklessly lost? I had to print out the words to look at them, to see what they said to me before some possibilities started to occur to me.

The words seemed so hopeless – almost as if the darkness and despair were coming regardless of what we do. Rape and murder? Certainly common enough in war, but not exclusive attributes of warring activities. So was it a societal epidemic it was referring to? Man, where was Mick when I really need some answers!

So I started taking a broader look at the world around me. Not hard to do since every news broadcast, newspaper and internet blog is full of the miseries of this world; of everything that is wrong with people, the world. Yes, all of it is true – our children are dying in the streets in Iraq and America. Children are starving as well and we’re tolerating it as a society because we simply don’t know what to do to reclaim our streets and towns, our world. Our hearts weep with the wasted potential of our youth, our future. Famililes shed tears over flags that cover the coffins of our dead and wash the blood off the sidewalks and streets and pray that the violence doesn’t claim anymore lives. How do we keep hoping; hoping that it will change?

And then one line in the song suddenly jumped out at me.

I tell you love, sister, it's just a kiss away

Isn’t our love our strongest shield? No, it cannot stop the bullets as they blast through bodies, tearing asunder not only the body but the lives of so many. But can love help us to find a way to shield the kids who carry the guns because they see them as the only protection from a hostile world? If we love enough, not only our family, but our communities, our cities and towns and neighbors, if we love enough can we do it? Will love make us strong enough to stand up and say ‘No MORE!’? No more fruitless death, that your gangs are not family, they are not love. They are only a temporal path to destruction derived from people who don’t have a clue as to what real love is? Who don’t know the shield of protection the loving arms of mothers and fathers and grandparents and family and friends of all types provide.

No, love cannot stop a bullet but it can stop the tide of violence by building children and society strong enough to take a stand against it; one person at a time.

This sister will choose love, with all my heart.