Poor Amy Winehouse.  Though I have not seen the newly released documentary about her, and though I am aware that her family is unhappy with how it was done, as I reflect on her too short life, I think about someone who, many decades ago, met a premature end, too, for many of the same reasons:  Janis Joplin.  Both of these women defied the norm, challenged convention, and rode horses, metaphorically speaking, which most people may not have thought they should.  But ride them they did, with often dazzling effect.  Those of us who saw Janis Joplin in concert could not help but walk away amazed at her aura and power:  she gave it her all, her absolute all.  The little footage I've seen of Amy Winehouse in concert presents her similarly:  she threw herself into her music.
     And her life.  We weep for these two women.  We weep for their early demise, we weep for the talent lost, and we weep for a world, a world which too many of us see in terms of black and white, but a world which, our artist friends tell us, is decidedly gray. Our lives are incredibly multifaceted, confusing, and diverse.  We shun its depths at our peril.
     So we ask:  why do so many of us miss life's greater point?  Or is there one?
     Not only do I hope, for the sake of these broken and seemingly unredeemable lives, there is, but so I also believe that, precisely because of these shattered existences, there must be.  There is value, there is a point:  God is bigger than the most broken of broken dreams.