from Keeping Time, by Ann Copeland

Pressures abound today to reinforce our sense of darkness and disconnectedness on many levels. Dead ends. Final losses. As I write these words, newspapers and TV carry tales of the looting and pillaging of the National Museum of Iraq whose records and artifacts recorded the history of a civilization that began to flourish on the fertile plains of Mesopotamia more than seven thousand years ago. Links have been broken, destroyed forever.

Closer to the heart, in personal lives, there is no denying links broken, as any adult knows. A sense of disconnectedness is our human métier. A page is torn from a sacred book, a particular path of religious commitment loses its power, connections to loved ones are severed by illness, death. History, our times, our individual lives educate us to sustain only guarded optimisms, skeptical faith. And yet . . .

That “and yet” informs my efforts here and in the essays that follow. We possess the power to forge connections across time. In our blackest moments, we may read final loss. Yet the adventure of tracing connections, discovering links, rediscovering meaning can yield surprise and discovery for even the most dubious.

—Ann Copeland, Keeping Time: A Life Making Music