Once Upon a Time . . .

B.C., before Covid, before 9/11, There was an "American Dream"narrative many believed. That dream followed Americans from childhood all the way through adulthood then well into the "Golden Years." We lived on a consistent message that these United States of America held a certain promise that was guaranteed by the words written into the U.S. Constitution before we were born. Before now, we took that promise for granted, assuming it would stand the test of time for all time, or at the very least, for our own lifetime! Think again, my fellow Americans.

In 2016, on a frigid, snowy Sunday morning in an historic, New England church where many sermons and hymns had been sung before, a retired minister stood up unapologetically to say that although it had not been his practice to speak politically from the pulpit, this day he knew he had to. He was about to send up a warning flare like the night the Titanic did so. In vain.

In the 1960's, his mother had been an activist, he said. She had spoken up and worked against those who tried to oppress all others who belonged to the "protected" classes* under the Constitution. She had taught her son to speak up and that brought him to where he was standing on this day before a small congregation in one of the poorest, most depressed cities in the State of Massachusetts. He told us that when his mother passed away, he discovered a full dossier of her activism assembled by the FBI. He, too, as a young man had been documented for his affiliations with his mother! That didn't stop either one of them from speaking up, out, and outloud about the injustices many Americans suffered on a daily basis.

Their words and actions, along with many others, were instrumental in making it possible for everyone to vote, regardles; making it possible for women to receive safe, legal reproductive health care in their own community; making it possible to find asylum from brutal dictators elsewhere; making it possible to become an educated citizen through local schools; making it possible to breathe clean air and drink safe water; making it possible to attend synagogue or mosque or church without fear. This was the short list of possibilities that the minister juxtaposed against the long list of Presidential candidates that Spring in 2016. Then, this retired minister living out his Golden Years, spoke like a prophet that morning:

"We thought we had addressed and resolved many of the wrongs. We were the ones who were wrong! All the hatred, all the prejudice, all the evil, had just gone into a Pandora's Box. Now, in 2016, someone has the key and is about to open it in the next four years."

In 2023, we can attest to those prophetic words having been written into our American story. We American citizens must face this truth head on before it's too late. Too late for what? To late to speak freely, to write freely, to read freely (almost too late already), and to vote freely, which is becoming as precarious as in dictatorships that so many people flee against all odds. Is this the ending we want to write?

In 2024 . . . If we do not wish our story of a free democracy to come to an end, we must, each of us, act now, speak up now, against that very real and very present danger against OUR Democracy.

In the end, Pandora did open that box and unleashed all that was evil on an innocent world. But, the preacher told us not to forget that inside the box, there was also Hope!

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*www.eeoc.gov race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information (including family medical history).

Dots on a Page . . .

The composer said to the audience: "Until the music is played, it is just dots on a page". Modest and true. Yet, something mysterious and miraculous happens through creating and sharing music.

Pick your favorite kind of music, it doesn't matter whether classical or rock'n roll, the process begins and ends in the same way. In the first instance, an idea is heard in the mind of someone with pencil in hand moving on a blank page; from that moment on, silent sounds yet to be heard take shape. When the day comes, months or years later, the black markings come alive, even the silences, those rests written to breathe space in-between sound. In the end, our ears will hear what another once thought. Then, music becomes a live entity connecting the dots on the page to our lives and with others' lives. Every audience has experienced that ineffable connection with a stranger through music.

Like notes on a scale, I know not where words come from. Yet I sit at my writing desk looking out the large window framing summer like a photo and wonder what words will appear? Today, I started out to write one thing (music as the antidote to horrors of the world) and wound up here, instead. The writer/composer is also editor-at-will. I could simply hit the backspace and return to that original idea, but I don't want to. My head is full of music that I imbibed the past few evenings at the St. Augustine Music Festival. It lingers. The more I think I want to write about the power of music to heal, the more I want to share something of a moment that defies explanation. Music feels like a cool swim on a hot day; a walk through a garden full of red roses; a homesickness for some place; a longing for someone; a memory out of the blue; a bright yellow painting on a white wall; an old friend come to visit; a lost love; a newborn baby; a smile; a tear; a sigh.

Soulful and heartfelt gifts from the heart and soul of one human spirit to another heals individually and collectively. Granted much hard work is necessary from the process to the performance, yet it is that effort that underpins how meaningful and significant music is for a world ailing under its own weight.

A couple of summers ago while in Berlin, by chance I had a long conversation with an artist in her studio about music and time and Julian of Norwich. She invited me to make a video of our serendipitous meeting. This link is the final result of that process. You will find Suzanne Rikus is fluent in English, but you may want to turn on closed caption or follow along with the transcription.

https://youtu.be/ZAvETmk06f4?si=C73IY8WOSkutPWuZ

https://susannerikus.com/

In Solidarity

I have been given to understand how small this world is and how it torments itself with countless things it need not torment itself with if people could find within themselves a little more courage, a little more hope, a little more responsibility, a little more mutual understanding and love.

The past week in America people found courage within themselves and with that came a little more hope. Millions marched together to say NO to any King, or any dictator ruling over "we the people". Those who stood together from LA to Boston spoke with one voice, out loud, in Solidarity, the word most often associated with Vaclav Havel, dissident turned President of former Czechoslovakia.*

Photos are everywhere of how the Saturday protests looked from the outside. What it looked like on the inside is what makes the difference. If you were there you know the way the crowd kept growing; the signs kept coming; the flags kept rising higher above the fray. June 14 used to be called "Flag Day" before it became NO KINGS day. They are one in the same. Those early days of this Republic were symbolized by the red, white and blue. When I had a Cape Cod home, I flew a "Betsy Ross" flag by the front door. The thirteen stars in a circle and as many stripes fit the locale where pilgrims who sailed across open waters for months on end first made landfall. (Plymouth was the second place).

At "First Encounter"Beach*, the long story of White Europeans encountering indigenous peoples who did not look like them, speak like them, believe like them is said to have begun. This four-hundred-year old narrative brings us to where we are in America today.

In their first efforts to escape an intolerant King on their homeland, these men and women arrived uninvited and claimed the moral high ground over others. This attitude led to violence with those who belonged in the first place. We know how this played out for First Peoples. Yet, we still see this attitude toward who belongs in this Replublic and who does not. But, unlike early days, we have become a mix of colors, languages, religions, and personal identities. There is no "one and only one" who can rightfully and righteously speak for what this country, or any country, ought to look like, sound like, dress like, love like. No! We are all in this together. One for all and all for one, except for any ONE person who would be King.

*https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/09/18/vaclav-havel-harvard-commencement/

** https://www.easthamhistoricalsociety.org/site-of-the-first-encounter