LETTERS FROM HOME: HOLDING THE WORLD TOGETHER ONE PIECE AT A TIME

Oct. 19, 2000

Dear Pat,

The story is an old one straight out of Hollywood. Leaving family and all that is familiar behind, small town girl with a dream moves to the big city.

Other than in the movies, the story often ends badly or at least in frustration.

Sheryl Crow seems to have an uncommon destiny.

People who grow up in Kennett, Mo., aren't supposed to become international music stars. They aren't supposed to go to the city of the fallen angels and soar to the top of the charts. Or so we think.

I grew up knowing people who wanted to do just that. They were talented and dreamed of "making it" without knowing what that might require or mean. None of us knows how good good is and many don't want to find out.

Still, most of us get to experience a version of stardom. The only difference is the size of the orbit. For some people it's the circle of their family. Sheryl Crow's orbit is huge. She can influence the world with the sound of her voice. Her benefits raise money to rid the world of land mines and breast cancer. Like Sting, Bonnie Raitt, Elton John and others, she is a powerful force a star with a social conscience.

I mention her because Crow is coming to Cape Girardeau in December to play a benefit concert. Education will be the beneficiary this time.

The rest of us may not have the profile of a Sheryl Crow, but we all affect the world.

Each of us holds a bit of the world together, I suspect, each of us is essential in ways we hardly are conscious of.

Each day, we are confronted by the smallest of decisions that have ethical and moral repercussions, are given opportunities to act and react lovingly or otherwise.

Physics has a theory that a butterfly taking flight in Australia creates a wisp of wind that can eventually can become a hurricane in the Caribbean. If so, then the comfort given an abused child in Cape Girardeau could as easily prevent a bomb from exploding in Jerusalem.

We are not, men and women, black and white, Jew and Moslem, as separate as we seem. Distances of time and miles are easily traveled by the heart.

There is no limit to the good we can do if we only seek to do good.

Here's to Sheryl Crow and all the great, good hearts each of us know are plugging away, day after day.

Love, Sam