Tragedy

I am sure, that by now at least, you have heard about the mass shooting that took place in Orlando Florida in the early morning hours of June 12, 2016. I refuse to dwell on details or commentary on what happened, why it happened, or what is wrong with our country that these types of things continue to happen, but I do want to respond with something.

For me, I react to tragic events like this in several different ways. My responses are my own and not right for everyone, but here's how I respond.

Here's what I won't do today. I will not change my picture on Facebook. I will not post any rhetoric whether I agree with it or not. I will not publicly acknowledge or debate any issue related to this tragedy. I will not unfriend someone from social media unless they are so offensive that I simply cannot continue to consider their opinions.

Here's what I will do today. 

I am praying.

I will take some time today to pray for those who were involved in the tragedy. For those who were there, for those who died, for the families affected by this incident, and for those who are investigating. I will pray for those who were not directly part of the tragedy but who relive their own tragedies every time something like this happens again. I pray for my own family and for my friends and for my clients as we go through a period of collective thought, mourning, and decision making.

I am grieving.

At some point today, probably during my commute to my job, I will allow myself to deeply feel loss for the 50 people who died even though I don't know any of them personally. I will allow myself to feel loss for the 53 people who have been irrevocably changed by this incident - physically, that is. I will also feel loss for the rest of the people who are affected by this tragedy both personally and vicariously.

I am using music.

My grieving music is Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland. For some reason, it reaches my grief like no other piece of music. I don't just keep it for grieving, however. It is one of my favorite music pieces. Period. For today, it's use will be to symbolize the loss of life in Florida. Tomorrow it may represent something else.

One of my favorite things to think about during days such as this one is from Leonard Bernstein. This is speech he gave in 1963 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

My dear friends:

Last night the New York Philharmonic and I performed Mahler’s Second Symphony-- The Resurrection-- in tribute to the memory of our beloved late President. There were those who asked: Why the Resurrection Symphony, with its visionary concept of hope and triumph over worldly pain, instead of a Requiem, or the customary Funeral March from the Eroica? Why indeed? We played the Mahler symphony not only in terms of resurrection for the soul of one we love, but also for the resurrection of hope in all of us who mourn him. In spite of our shock, our shame, and our despair at the diminution of man that follows from this death, we must somehow gather strength for the increase of man, strength to go on striving for those goals he cherished. In mourning him, we must be worthy of him.

I know of no musician in this country who did not love John F. Kennedy. American artists have for three years looked to the White House with unaccustomed confidence and warmth. We loved him for the honor in which he held art, in which he held every creative impulse of the human mind, whether it was expressed in words, or notes, or paints, or mathematical symbols. This reverence for the life of the mind was apparent even in his last speech, which he was to have made a few hours after his death. He was to have said: “America’s leadership must be guided by learning and reason.” Learning and reason: precisely the two elements that were necessarily missing from the mind of anyone who could have fired that impossible bullet. Learning and reason: the two basic precepts of all Judaistic tradition, the twin sources from which every Jewish mind from Abraham and Moses to Freud and Einstein has drawn its living power. Learning and Reason: the motto we here tonight must continue to uphold with redoubled tenacity, and must continue, at any price, to make the basis of all our actions.

It is obvious that the grievous nature of our loss is immensely aggravated by the element of violence involved in it. And where does this violence spring from? From ignorance and hatred-- the exact antonyms of Learning and Reason. Learning and Reason: those two words of John Kennedy’s were not uttered in time to save his own life; but every man can pick them up where they fell, and make them part of himself, the seed of that rational intelligence without which our world can no longer survive. This must be the mission of every man of goodwill: to insist, unflaggingly, at risk of becoming a repetitive bore, but to insist on the achievement of a world in which the mind will have triumphed over violence.

We musicians, like everyone else, are numb with sorrow at this murder, and with rage at the senselessness of the crime. But this sorrow and rage will not inflame us to seek retribution; rather they will inflame our art. Our music will never again be quite the same. This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. And with each note we will honor the spirit of John Kennedy, commemorate his courage, and reaffirm his faith in the Triumph of the Mind.

http://www.leonardbernstein.com/response_to_violence.htm

For me, the beauty of this speech coalesces in the last paragraph.

"We musicians, like everyone else, are numb with sorrow at this murder, and with rage at the senselessness of the crime. But this sorrow and rage will not inflame us to seek retribution; rather they will inflame our art. Our music will never again be quite the same."

And, especially, this sentence.

"This will be our response to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."

Let this be our response to violence whenever and wherever it happens. To keep making music with those who need it and for those who need it no matter what happens.