It’s been years since I wrote a diary, so forgive…
WIlliam McRaven, in the Washington Post, writes on hope. And song. He describes an incident in his SEAL training, recruits wading in mud overnight. And I want to share two actions my wife and I took when we read it.
Several of the students started moving to dry ground; they were ready to quit. And then, one voice began to echo through the night — one voice raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two, and two became three, and before long the entire class was singing. The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept singing, but the singing persisted. Those of us stuck in the mud believed that if one of us could start singing when he was up to his neck in mud, then maybe the rest of us could make it through the night. And we did.
To bring it to our current challenge, he describes the incredible mobilization of scientists and local politicians, and…
Nothing in our immediate future will be easy. The number of cases will rise. The losses will increase. The markets will stumble. But make no mistake about it, we will prevail, because the only thing more contagious than a virus is hope. We are all up to our necks in mud. It’s time to start singing.
Just before reading that, we had made room in the freezer by ejecting a box of popsicles in favor of...stuff. We don’t know when our granddaughters will visit again, although they live only 30 miles away. Months. I’ve now retrieved them and re-boxed them. The popsicles, not the granddaughters. The girls have their own box of hope in a corner of the freezer.
My wife and I met in London at a BBC Promenade concert in 1968, between Beethoven and Brahms. A couple of weeks later we were standing together in the crowd joining in the traditional sing-along of “Jerusalem” at the season’s last concert. Here are our successors, 50 years later — the conductor here, Andrew Davis, was also frequently in the same audience in the late 60’s. Although it talks about England, the poem uses Jerusalem as a metaphor, and can apply to us all.
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
Keep hope alive, and keep singing.