There's Music In Us
Last night, we gathered in the Santa Ynez Valley Botanic Garden for the inaugural concert in a series organized by Grey Bear Erickson to launch a nonprofit organization called MÁS. Its goal is to make music and art more accessible to all. A Chumash blessing reminded us of the sanctity of this place and one another, and Joachim Cooder performed his beautiful songs as afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees, little children played in garden pathways, and friends on chairs and blankets took time out from the woes of the world and remembered enchantment.
It was the culmination of a musical and festive week. The resistance singers had held their morning practice a few days earlier, walking along a back street singing, in preparation for their upcoming participation in our town’s 4th of July parade. At a fair in Lompoc one evening, we watched a show of fledgling young musicians from Certain Sparks, including our 13-year-old neighbor, who played a pink bass guitar. Flags were snapping in the wind, crafts people sold earrings and soap and knitted goods, aromas drifted from taco trucks, and screams emanated from a carnival ride spinning brave passengers high in the air, occasionally upside-down. I guess some folks enjoy being upside-down. I am not one of them.
Which inevitably brings me to the upside-down-ness of our country as we near its birthday celebration. You know what’s going on. And if you don’t, or if you do and it doesn’t bother you, you long ago left the realm of reason.
I like listening to podcasts and favorite songs when I drive, but a few days ago, I made the mistake of turning on the radio, just in time to hear this pronouncement from Stephen Miller, one of the most grotesque and hateful characters in the shit show: “America’s doors are closed.”
What an ugly and un-American sentiment! It’s particularly dissonant as we approach the designated birthday of our nation. Happy birthday, America...you great unfinished symphony...as Lin-Manuel Miranda described it in Hamilton. Our nation has been highjacked, but we haven't forgotten who we are. We are people from everywhere, and we care about each other. You sent for me. You let me make a difference.
My own immigrant grandfather was a stocky southern Italian who came to this country in 1905 not knowing a word of English. He worked hard and made a life here. And this is the awareness with which I travel through my own life. It fosters gratitude, humility, and compassion. As in these lyrics by Paul Simon, “I've been given all I wanted, Only three generations off the boat. I've harvested and I've planted. I'm wearing my father's old coat.”
I wear the old coat, and I carry the stories, and all around me, I see hardworking people who have come here for the same reasons. A few days ago, three diligent workers were clearing brush and digging the ground to form a dry creek bed in our yard. It’s a way to prevent erosion and manage stormwater run-off, but in this case, it was also a work of art. While they worked, the air was filled with Mexican music, and the fragrance of freshly cut brush wafted in through my open window, and I cannot describe how much joy it gave me. I don’t speak Spanish, but I went outside and managed a gracias, for their labor and their spirit.
None of this is unusual. We are a symphony of many languages and songs, and we are built with many hands, leaning into one another.
I respect the courage of those who come to our shores with aspirations similar to those of my own forebears, many forced from their homelands by terrible conditions. I cannot understand the default assumption that these are bad people deserving of punishment. I cannot forgive the cruelty and hypocrisy we are witnessing today, nor the brazen corruption, stupidity, and vulgarity.
Meanwhile, programs vital to the health and well-being of all Americans have been slashed to benefit the obscenely rich, and hard-won measures that were put in place to protect our very planet have been overturned. Happy birthday, America.
One of the songs we have been practicing is America the Beautiful, whose lyrics were written by Kathleen Lee Bates in 1895. I am especially intrigued by its ornate, old-fashioned second stanza:
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
Those pilgrim feet come from many shores, and I personally relate to the impassioned stress, but the lack of self-control in the upside-down kingdom and the mounting failures of Court and Congress to confirm liberty in law are alarming indeed.
And yet, I am brimming with music and friendship and hope, and I still believe we will get our America back on track. Now that the flaws (to be mended less by God than by our human efforts) are more conspicuous than ever, perhaps we can reinvent a better version, rather than trying to replicate what has been broken or lost.
I know we can do it, because my immigrant grandfather bequeathed to me his values and his hopes, and my father and uncle were soldiers in a war, and I see good people all around me trying to make things better. I have lived a life of blessings and learned it’s not okay to ignore the suffering of others.
And there is music in us.
So bring on the fireworks, bring on the singing, bring on the parade. It is this resolve, this unshakeable commitment, that I will be celebrating.
One of my favorite songs that Joachim sang at the concert under the trees was about passing through Fort Smith, Arkansas and glimpsing a young girl there, wondering what thoughts and dreams and secrets were locked in her heart, whether she would someday leave, thinking about his own daughter at home, and what the future holds.
“Daddy’s lost his job, but he’s doing the best he can, /likes to take everyone to the Texas Road House every now and then./Godspeed little children. Soon you’ll be growing up.”
This song touched me deeply. As I have said, I honor the struggles and values of those who came before me, but I also care deeply about the world we will leave behind for future generations. We have to get things right-side-up again.
And we will need each other to achieve this. I have heard it suggested that on the 4th of July we proclaim a Declaration of Interdependence. It’s an idea that makes sense to me. We are nothing in isolation, but we are so powerful together.
In this week of music and community, my confidence is restored.
Godspeed little children.
