Thursday, October 16, 2008

The Gift of Music

After water aerobics this morning I went to chat with a couple of my classmates. Their words left me feeling sad, angry and frustrated. They were telling one another why they were voting against Barack Obama. One said the only reason his mother got him up at four-thirty in the morning was to pray. His mother was a radical hippie who was teaching her son to be a Muslim. His mother had never really married his father and she was just going from one Muslim man to another. They were afraid of Obama because he is black and he could never understand how white people feel. I wanted to say many things, but there is no rational argument that is effective against bigotry and racism. I did say I thought they had some misinformation and that I would vote for Obama. They changed the topic and I soon left. I found their words disturbing because they were just a representation of the irrational fear they felt. It depressed me.

This afternoon I went to practice singing with the senior chorale. We are preparing for our holiday program which will be a set of ten hallelujah songs. There is quite a variety of music, everything from Handel to Ray Charles. The music we sang today was all happy, foot tapping , clapping music. It made me feel good to sing it. The room was filled with a happy sound that pretty much washed away the sadness of the morning.

I love that God has given the gift of music.

This is not our chorale singing, but it is one of the songs we are practicing. How can you not be happy singing this?

5 comments:

rosemary said...

I had a similar experience with a neighbor in the market....she focused on Obama's middle name and something about kadafi....i felt angry after i moved on.....not at her so much as myself for not telling her I was voting for Obama. Am I a wimp? non-Confrontational? What ever the reason i wish i had said something.

Middle Child said...

But then I suppose had one been living in China and a man called Bill Smith got up to run for president their might be comments made - like what's a Bill Smith? Its not the comments made but the intention behind the comments - if its just in fun and then you vote fairly thats okay, but when its purely stupid and nasty...

we have an election on today for our state member - there were sio many independents running it was madness and a few bloody wierd names as well. Ond man even had red hair ( heard one person comment that he might have a temper) You got to laugh and cry

Jennie said...

I miss church choir. We moved churches and now I don't sing. I've been missing it a lot lately. I just don't know what to say about the politics conversation. People focus on what they choose and some stuff is quite irrelevant or false or blown out of proportion! We need that ole "just the facts ma'am."

AM Kingsfield said...

Facts can be elusive. Fear is palpable. I hate being part of an organization that bases it's choices on fear, that panders to the basest in all of us. Been there. Left that. I hope we have come farther than that.

Sling said...

Some people seem to make a conscious choice to be ignorant.
Is that how Obama got elected to the Senate?..by running on the Radical-Hippy-mother-Muslim-Terrorist,and Anti-American Socialist ticket??..It boggles the mind.