Scrolling news and social media is how I misspend a lot of my time now, since the larger blocks when I can really bare down on artistic work are scarcer and less predictable in my life. Every so often someone famous in the 20^th century will start to pop up unexpectedly in news article headings and post streams, a dreadful event. What is it this time, the back of mind thinks, nostalgia or death?

So yesterday it was Sinéad O’Connor that trended. One heading said the tense: “…she was….”

I was a little surprised at the building response, but shouldn’t have been. I have been aware, despite her shortish career in popular music, that her performances had a capacity to deeply touch people. There was a pure dialectic in many of those performances: fierceness and vulnerability simultaneously in an unstable state. When those two things exist at once, like flame and water, it’s dark and warm, bright and reflective, quenched and fueled.

When that combination resonates, it resonates deep with the listener. I myself have only the most inconsistent fierceness. There is an element of self-righteousness taken on as an armor that frightens me, no matter how just the cause, because I have seen the same armor worn on evil as often as good. But then, approaching injustice, as I may do with only questions and pain, seems to equivocate.

There was a pure dialectic in many of those performances: fierceness and vulnerability simultaneously in an unstable state.

My own oddest combination? I am something of a spiritual seeker deeply distrustful of every other pilgrim and certain that any mystical explanation obfuscates reality. This part of me may make me like and unlike O’Connor. As a human being I feel foolish and pretentious discussing any of this, though I hold my nose and type on today.

Yet, O’Connor, with her unstable and uncommon combination, should have taught me the insight that many are sharing in the past day: that there’s a human inside the armor. I knew that — but didn’t know  that well enough. Art may be persistent in showing us that deeper knowing.

Getting back to O’Connor’s performances then, here’s a lesser-known one, of a song that has to be one of the most over-done and over-sung Celtic tunes. Even without any additional context, pay attention to the presenter’s introduction. One could write an essay on its undertones. And then she sings.

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