Interesting Saturday evening rekindling a friendship, a significant other comfortably sharing a quaint, unexpectedly gifted, night of entertainment.  We ventured to the University of Akron’s Edwin J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall to enjoy a night of tribute to the seventies phenomenally successful brother and sister duo The Carpenters.  Helen Welch, a charismatic English woman, put the show together, performing with a passion and devotion to a singer who greatly influenced her professional career.  The backing band of piano, drums, bass, and lead guitar struck enthusiastically upon proficiency and youthful zest.  We met Helen’s dignified husband manning a booth offering CDs before the show.  Waiting at the ticket booth, I overhead a woman mentioning she had a Groupon providing a discount of $10 per ticket.  I stepped out of line, investigating the savings, only to be disappointed to find the deal could no longer be purchased.  I made my way back to the ticket booth, finding no line and a surprise.  The ticket seller pushed two tickets at me, explaining they were just dropped off with the instructions to give them to the next purchaser.  Unclear regarding details, I told the seller I did not have that much cash, intending to use a credit card to purchase tickets.  I thought she offered a discounted cash deal.  She said no, they are yours if you want them.  I smiled, sharing my joy of saving fifty dollars with the significant other.  The show proved fascinating, excellent in performance.  I found myself reflecting on the influence of Karen Carpenter upon my childhood.  The woman’s voice hypnotized me as a child, soothing and drawing me into reflections upon romance and female companionship.  There was something wholesome, old-fashioned, and out-of-place.  Amidst the attraction, Karen was an embarrassment compared to the rebellious rock-n-roll influences attracting my childish attention.  It was a secret passion and mystery to listen as closely as I could to Karen Carpenter sing.  Helen Welch, aside from entrancing renditions, also provided biographical information on the Carpenters.  I felt she made an erroneous remark when she commented that when she first saw Karen singing ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’ she was stunned how young Karen was.  Helen was convinced it was not possible for someone so young and pretty to sing so authentically of suffering.  It was Karin’s talent alone providing such depth to the song.  I am convinced she misunderstood, underestimating human potential under the influence of grace.  Karin was a young woman of immense and intense humility, aware on an inner level that can only be attributed to grace.  There was something she was able to convey coming from the depth of her being, something she would never be able to apply to her life.  Her heart had something weighty to say that her life could not embrace.  Establishing unprecedented success as a singer, she never saw herself as a singer growing up.  Her brother convinced her to sing.  She was so shy and introverted they had to ply her out from hiding, pulling her away from the obstruction of her drum kit.  It was her desire to sing while playing concealed amongst her drums.  Exploding onto massive worldly success, her handlers and brother, who became addicted to Quaaludes, forced a horrendous schedule of constant touring.  Stripped of a personal life, she was truly a shy goofy girl deprived of the love she could so beautifully sing and define for others.  Her life was a tragedy and amidst tragedy God reigns supreme, interiorly influencing toward a greater love.  I have no doubt, openly admitting to a bit of romanticism, that the longing for love, the awareness of sorrow was graced upon the interior life of Karen during the tenderness of youth.  She was a young lady living with an abandoned heart; desperate, helpless, and alone on the spiritual level.  Under the roasting glare of the spotlight, she remained hidden.  God would foresee the terror of a soul longing so deeply for love, unrequited and alone upon the deepest levels—a woman who would starve herself to the point of death at the age of thirty-two.  What agony, confusion, and pain she must have known, while the grandeur of fame and riches meant nothing to her.  Detached upon a destructive and suicidal path, God had to be working on her to bring her to the understanding of genuine and everlasting love.  In her song, ‘I Need To Be In Love’, she sadly sings:

The hardest thing I’ve ever done is keep believing
There’s someone in this crazy world for me
The way that people come and go through temporary lives
My chance could come and I might never know

I used to say “No promises, let’s keep it simple”
But freedom only helps you say goodbye
It took a while for me to learn that nothing comes for free
The price I paid is high enough for me

I know I need to be in love
I know I’ve wasted too much time
I know I ask perfection of a quite imperfect world

And fool enough to think that’s what I’ll find

So here I am with pockets full of good intentions
But none of them will comfort me tonight
I’m wide awake at 4 a.m. without a friend in sight
I’m hanging on a hope but I’m all right

No Karin you were not alright.  Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more…God was calling you through the madness, drawing you into a deeper mystery, crucifying you through worldly success and the lacking of that what you held dearest.  God never allowed you to enjoy love, even within a failed marriage, holding you negligent in order to enfold you within an eternal love.  I pray it is not just my thoughts dallying in romance.

“Goodbye To Love”

I’ll say goodbye to love
No one ever cared if I should live or die
Time and time again the chance for love
has passed me by
And all I know of love
is how to live without it
I just can’t seem to find it.

So I’ve made my mind up I must live
my life alone
And though it’s not the easy way
I guess I’ve always known
I’d say goodbye to love.

There are no tomorrows for this heart of mine
Surely time will lose these bitter memories

And I’ll find that there is someone to believe in
And to live for something I could live for.

All the years of useless search
Have finally reached an end
Loneliness and empty days will be my
only friend
From this day love is forgotten
I’ll go on as best I can.

What lies in the future
is a mystery to us all
No one can predict the wheel of fortune
as it falls
There may come a time when I will see that
I’ve been wrong
But for now this is my song.

And it’s goodbye to love

‘ll say goodbye to love.

An enjoyable night of entertainment, light hearted and delightful in experience, while underneath a deeper mystery lingers. Karen every lyric you sing, I envision you aiming your words toward the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It is interesting her brother Richard would marry a woman named Mary, enjoying five beautiful children.