The Boss on The Big Man

I have read and pondered Bruce Springsteen's eulogy of Clarence Clemons the past couple of weeks.
       It's a bit weird to quote Springsteen on my blog, but he is emblematic of our culture and of our times. I appreciate his candor about Clarence's complexity and brokenness.
       "Those of us who shared Clarence's life, shared with him his love and his confusion. Though "C" mellowed with age, he was always a wild and unpredictable ride. Today I see his sons Nicky, Chuck, Christopher and Jarod sitting here and I see in them the reflection of a lot of C's qualities. I see his light, his darkness, his sweetness, his roughness, his gentleness, his anger, his brilliance, his handsomeness, and his goodness.
       "But, as you boys know your pop was a not a day at the beach. "C" lived a life where he did what he wanted to do and he let the chips, human and otherwise, fall where they may. Like a lot of us your pop was capable of great magic and also of making quite an amazing mess. This was just the nature of your daddy and my beautiful friend.
       "Clarence's unconditional love, which was very real, came with a lot of conditions. Your pop was a major project and always a work in progress. "C" never approached anything linearly, life never proceeded in a straight line. He never went A... B.... C.... D. It was always A... J.... C.... Z... Q... I....! That was the way Clarence lived and made his way through the world. I know that can lead to a lot of confusion and hurt, but your father also carried a lot of love with him, and I know he loved each of you very very dearly."
       My overwhelming response to these words is one of SADNESS. Yes, it is tragic that Clemons died. But what is more sad to me is that he never seemed to get through the cycle of sin and brokenness in all of our lives. To be clear, we never fully get through it in this life. And yet Jesus transforms people's lives; the Apostle Paul said that through Christ the old man is gone and the new man has come. I do not know where Clarence Clemons was at with God at the end of his life. But I take away from his story the urgency for people to be brought from our darkness into God's eternal light.