There’s this gorgeous song in Rent. It’s sung for the first time during a support meeting for men and women with AIDS. There are only three sentences in the song. For two and a half minutes these same three questions repeat and repeat and repeat:
Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care? Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
The repetition represents both the cries of thousands of sufferers and the constant, unending anxiety of the individual.
This song is one reason I decided to move to New York City and tell people about God: Too many people dying (or living) with no one to love them, no one to show them a better reality, no one to model true dignity.
I went to New York to find those people—broken, hopeless people—and I found them, but since being in Henderson I’ve run into just as many. Lately I’ve realized the whole world is fallen; everyone needs dignity and love and hope.