“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will know peace.” (attributed to Jimi Hendrix)

I don’t know anything about Jimi Hendrix, although when he comes to mind, such as he did yesterday when I saw the Quote of the Week written in marker on the white board that hangs on the wall of the cardiac rehab workout room at University of New Mexico Hospital, I have some vague memory of him. He died on September 18, 1970, two days after my 27th birthday, so I wasn’t too young or too old to be a Hendrix fan. I just wasn’t drawn to him  or his music, I guess. I do know that he was legendary in his lifetime time and has become even more of a legend in 40-plus years following his death.

If I hadn’t confirmed that Hendrix indeed is the source of the quote above, I could just as easily attributed it to Gandhi. “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” A friend includes that with her signature as part of her email messages. This change is blood kin to the power of love Hendrix speaks of. “The power of love is a curious thing / make one man weep, make another man sing. / Change a hawk to a little white dove / more than a feeling, that's the power of love.” That’s what Huey Lewis has to say about it, including the reference to hawks and doves.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”. So penned Elizabeth Barrett Browning before 1861, the year of her death, and sometime before the American Civil War, which began in 1861 and cost the lives of over 1,000,000 Americans—3% of the population of the United States at the time. Her sonnet concerns a more personal kind of love.

I remember as a 20-something in the 1960s being drawn to the tenor of the times. It was the time of Viet Nam and the killing of war protestors at Kent State and Haight Ashbury and love-ins and bell bottom trousers. I remember my own pairs of bell bottoms—mostly in some embarrassment—but I don’t remember much about Jimi Hendrix except a vague recollection of hearing of his death on the radio news at the time. Janis Joplin died just two weeks later. Both deaths were the results of an overdose. I knew little about hard living or drugs. But a longing in my heart? Yes, I knew about that.

I was a teacher at the time, sweating out the war like the other males of my generation—that is, the ones who hadn’t joined up or gotten drafted. I hadn’t even remembered until I looked it up right now that the birth years of those primarily affected by the draft lottery held in December of 1969 were the years 1944 to 1959. I was born in 1943, but I sure as hell worried over the lottery after my teaching deferment had been revoked and I had been called for a physical and been classified as IA. I guess I lucked out. I never got called. I remember feeling what a bullshit war it was. Little did I know at the time. In so many ways I was sheltered and naive. No doubt, I was more naive than many of the students in my classes at a wealthy suburban Houston high school.

As I walked the treadmill in cardiac rehab yesterday morning, the quote from Jimi Hendrix got me to thinking about how far I’ve come since 1970, and yet I haven’t traveled far at all. My body has changed, I’m recovering from heart bypass surgery—something I hadn’t imagined even 18 months ago. But my heart remains unchanged. Cynicism aside, I know the power of love to change us—if we are willing.