I am in Love with Karen Carpenter

“Yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not.”

                                     

                                              Augustine of Hippo    

I have a bittersweet confession to make; I am in love with Karen Carpenter. Because of my drive to succeed at all costs, I have only truly loved a handful of women in my life. Besides my mother, grandmother, sisters and a girl who shall remain nameless, who spurned me for the mission field, I have not truly loved many women.

However, I think I truly love Karen Carpenter of the 1970’s soft-rock group, The Carpenters. Her haunting music has been something special of my life and today, I think I have a confession to make, I love Karen Carpenter.

Karen was, along with her pianist brother, one of the most gifted musicians of her generation and had angelic voice that was like a proverbial siren of olden days that beckoned sailors to crash against the rocks. I have crashed against a few “rocks” in my days, and time after time I have gone to this majestic superstar named Karen Carpenter.

Karen Carpenter was a gift of God for the ages and I am often stopped in my tracks and taken off guard when I happen to hear her music while shopping or listening to music on the radio. I don’t often listen to 1970’s pop rock, but when I do, I most definitely listen and love Karen Carpenter.

In all actuality, I am not sure if I “love” anyone but my Libertarian self but if I do love anyone, it is the Karen. Maybe I don’t love Karen in the purist sense, and I, like Augustine of Hippo, am “in love with love.” Maybe, I love the concept of love or being in love with a lover who is loved. I am not sure, but I think, in some sense my love for Karen is real.