Just a Song Sunday: Let There Be Peace On Earth

I hate it when the world gets enveloped in hatred and fear.

I despair when people take something that means one thing to me and twists it into something that supports hurting others.

I am disturbed when acts that are designed to hurt others and instill fear in more people are not labeled what they clearly are (in my opinion), terrorism, no matter who perpetrates the action. 

I like to think that I would have been one of the people in the clergy line, promoting peace and nonviolent demonstration, but I suspect that I would not have stepped up to participate if invited to do so. That makes me sad.

Full disclosure here. I am a white, Christian, highly educated single woman. I am about as privileged as you can be when it comes to expectations and socioeconomic status (I could always be higher on the SEStatus continuum, but I have enough money to support myself and my eccentric habits, so I really can't complain).

When things happen in the world, like the demonstrations and deaths in Charlottesville, VA, like the deaths of people in India due to lack of oxygen treatments, like any situation where the actions of one person hurt another person intentionally, I mourn.

I'd like to think that I will step up and defend others when confronted with the situations I deplore, but I don't know. I like to think that I project an attitude of acceptance towards all others, but I am always surprised when people make assumptions about my attitudes, politics, and levels of acceptance. I purposefully keep many of my ideas to myself because I don't feel like they are the business of anyone but me. People then assume whatever they want to project upon me.

Anyway. To my point for today...

The songs running through my head today are peace songs. Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono band, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? by Pete Seeger, or Peter, Paul, and Mary, or by the Kingston Trio. If you search peace songs, you can find many different links to songs about peace.

For me, though, the quintessential song is Let There Be Peace on Earth. My favorite part of the song is the phrase, "and let it begin with me."

I have a responsibility to the world to seek peace. To promote peace. To find peace for others. It is my responsibility. It is your responsibility to choose the way you will go into the world. I daily choose how I interact with others - either through peace or through conflict. Sometimes peace is easy. Sometimes it is not easy.

I am going to try to walk through the world as a peace seeker. 

My favorite quotation about peace is from Leonard Bernstein.
This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.
I am going to try to do just that, make music more intensely, more beautifully, and more devotedly than ever before.

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