Sad Days

When I’m emotionally distraught; when grief and loss and confusion overcome my soul, I sit at my piano and play, my soul pouring out in the notes all the sadness and heartache that flow from within. When my father died, I would play for hours, deep scales of longing and heartbreak, pouring out my grief into the minor chords of a McDowell concerto. When my mother passed, I sat and played Les Bonnes Chansons, French Canadian melodies she grew up with, then passed down to us, much as her mother did for her. I played until the tears could flow and my heart healed, each note a healing balm of love and joy remembered.

Last night. And the night before, and before that.  I sat and played, and played.  Hymns and spirituals, and more hymns; dirges of mourning. Songs of loss and longing, of pain and sadness. Of confusion.  

The piano is how I process the loss I don’t understand; the hurt and sadness of a world gone askew.

There’s much being printed and videoed and reported about the recent incidents of violence across our American cities; violence against the black man and woman; violence against those whose skin shines black or brown or red or gold.  Against anyone who isn’t white, really, though the focus in these times is our never-ending oppression of the black people in our midst.  And I’m ashamed. And sad. And unsettled.  I haven’t taken to the streets.  I’ve taken to my piano. I play out my prayers of confusion, for change, for understanding, sending melodies to God that reflect the sadness in my heart.

In 2009 we moved to a small town in Connecticut after a lifetime in Massachusetts for the sole purpose of joining the church we now love and in which we worship. Our first experience of this place was a rainbow of people - all madly in love with God - and with each other. People of every nation; not only African Americans, but immigrants from from Nigeria, and Ghana and Zimbabwe. Spanish brothers and sisters from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Columbia. Haitians.  Chinese and Japanese. Indians from India. It was a wondrous smorgasbord of peoples and nations and tongues.  The day we joined our beloved church we wondered that “This place is what heaven must look like.”   Today, there is a flag from every nation of the world hanging along the back of the church - a testimony that God is a God of all nations, of all the world. And all are welcome.

And because of the folks I’ve come to know and the friendships I’ve made; because of the sweet souls I’ve come to experience, both in church and out; because of the best friends of my grandchildren who are bold in color as well as character; because of these honorable and loving men and women who live with a soul-pain and life-hardship I’ll never know - because of this? I mourn this week.

I’m a white woman of a “certain age”, who grew up in the suburbs. I have always lived outside of poverty, outside the city, outside of want, outside of discrimination.  And so I don’t pretend to understand, and I won’t insult my brown and black and other-colored friends by pretending I do.  I am “outside” the communal frustration and angst and fear of my friends of color. And though I usually shy away from political statements, and from entering into the fray of civil strife, today I take a stand with my brothers and sisters of color, and say: I mourn with you.  I ache for you and your children, and pray that there will be justice done.  I will stand with you, and acknowledge that what has happened in these past days, months, years, decades — for centuries! is so very wrong. What is happening to our racially diverse friends in our cities and towns and in shadowed corners of our country is wrong; what will happen in the future to our friends and family if we can’t bring about change in our world will not only be wrong, but unjust and immoral, and cannot be tolerated.

I’m proud of my daughters who are raising their children immersed in cultural and racial diversity; best friends of different races. Play dates and birthday parties with rainbow colors across their skin, smiles and joy the same color for every child. The promise of a better future rests in those small steps.

I do not protest out in the street, nor do I raise my voice loud in the crowd.  Perhaps I should, I don’t know - I never have, and I’m not sure I can start now.  But I can raise my voice in the crowd of blogs and articles and internet media and join with the growing tide of frustration and say “enough is enough”! I can say we should begin with our conversion to a just society here at home.  On our street. In our church. In our towns. That’s how change begins, with a small stone, a gentle ripple that builds into a wave.  I want to be a part of that wave.

So, the best I can do today is cast my stone into the pond, and say I’m sorry.  Sorry for your loss; sorry for the heartache. Sorry for what has become - what remains -  our reality.  May we all put our stones into the pond so that each ripple becomes a wave. God knows - we need a tsunami of love to turn this world around. Let’s start today.