I’m sitting in my room listening to a heavy rain falling outside and am grateful to be safe, dry, and warm inside. I think about folks who are neither safe nor warm this evening and I offer prayers for them. This has felt like a really long week, though of course it contained the same 168 hours that every other week does. Still, it feels like it has at least been a great deal longer. I have one more work-related event tomorrow before my weekend truly begins and then the workweek starts up again on Monday.
This has been a long, dramatic week. The events in Boston and the surrounding area have dominated the news in such a way that little else has been reported on, though surely other things are happening around the world, other conflicts, other drama, as well as good and peaceful happenings. But we have heard or seen little of that. I didn’t watch the news much yesterday or the day before. When I turned it on this evening as I was having dinner most of the major networks were broadcasting from the town near Boston where the bombing suspect was holed up. The news people all talking amongst themselves, all scrambling to be the first to see something, hear something, know something so they can tell all of us riveted to our televisions what has happened. I turned it off after a while, having found them a little grating on the nerves.
I am tired this evening and so will keep tonight’s post brief. Earlier today I received an email from a colleague in which she shared a poem that seemed to resonate with what a lot of people perhaps are feeling. I am grateful as always for poetry, songs, artwork, dance, and so many artistic ways in which we grapple with, make sense of, and express our feelings about the world around us. We can use the arts to give voice to our confusion, pain, joy, fear, love, compassion and the myriad states of mind and heart that reflect the human condition. As a songwriter I’ve often used the music as a vehicle for expressing emotions I could not otherwise speak. It has offered healing and release over all these years and is a gift that I treasure. At a time when there is so much drama and trauma in the world I pray for release and healing and peace. May all being be free from suffering and the root of suffering. So be it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~For Our World
We need to stop.
Just stop.
Stop for a moment.
Before anybody
Says or does anything
That may hurt anyone else.
We need to be silent.
Just silent.
Silent for a moment.
Before we forever lose
The blessing of songs
That grow in our hearts.
We need to notice.
Just notice.
Notice for a moment.
Before the future slips away
Into ashes and dust of humility.
Stop, be silent, and notice.
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.
Be for a moment.
Kind and gentle, innocent and trusting,
Like children and lambs,
Never judging or vengeful
Like the judging and vengeful.
And now, let us pray,
Differently, yet together,
Before there is no earth, no life,
No chance for peace.
by Mattie Stepanek, written after September 11, 2001
