One of my favorite artists of all time is Brian Webb. I saw him back in 2005 in a living room concert. I immediately went to buy his two CDs online that night. I've listened to the 24ish tracks countless times (CONFESSION: I tried starting a relationship with him on Myspace about a month ago and he didn't even respond my semi-flirtatious online advances.)
Anyways, he has this song called Tobias and it is (from what I have gathered) about the difficulties of really loving those who are hard to love. Tobias is a homeless man who is borderline intriguing, borderline creepster. The song tells a tale of the battle between our desire to reach out, love, and engage with the fringe but the ultimate reality that our humanness comes up short. Even the best-intentioned humanitarian finds more inadequacy than ability.
The part of the song that has really been on my mind lately is Tobias' words to Brian Webb
"You're so happy with yourself because you live with the poor, but you can leave anytime you want to."
This is the reality that limits us--that forbids us from really loving. We are assured that we can, in fact, "leave anytime we want to" and therefore will never be truly "here".
