Three floors below my office at St. Columba’s Church in Washington, DC, was one of the sources of the strength of that happy and bustling parish. Occasionally needing a break from the less glamorous aspects of ministry, I would go down to the playground of St. Columba’s Nursery School.
On a wintry morning in January, 1990, I was hanging out near the jungle gym with a few kids, a couple of teachers, and one of the resident lop-eared bunnies. The Gulf War was underway, and we adults shared our concerns.
One of our gifted teachers, Carol Kranowitz, smiling in delight at the kids’ carefree laughter, sighed, “If only we had had little Saddam Hussein for a couple years here, the world might be a different place.”
That insight popped clearly to mind the other day in Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
I was surrounded by the voices of 1,000 students from 30 high schools in greater L.A. singing in the 36th annual High School Choir Festival. I saw the faces and heard the singing of a diverse community of teenagers, and their strong trained voices and their harmonies washed over me.
They took up half the hall, with parents and friends and others thrilling to the music from the side balconies. Arrayed at the back of the main stage were 30 choir directors, dedicated teachers who were cheered ecstatically by the students as they were introduced.
The beautiful choral energy touched my soul, and it resurrected with great clarity that moment on the playground in 1990. I found myself thinking: If only the current leaders of our government could somehow be transported to Disney Hall right now . . .
Like the rest of us cheering the singers, they would be reduced to reverent silence. Reverence! Silence! . . . from politicians who need more of both. Who need to learn what makes America already great. Whose hearts need to be warmed by more than deals.
The choir festival is organized and underwritten by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and it is one of several initiatives to keep alive and elevate music education in our chronically underfunded public schools.
America is great for many reasons, among them that our children can get a rich education (if properly funded!), experience what it takes to master skills like making fine music, and know first-hand how harmonious cooperation is necessary to build communities that care.
Our current president is reminding us what makes America great, but he’s doing it in a profoundly negative way. By smashing through accepted norms of public behavior, stepping beyond the strict limits of our laws, he’s demonstrating that constitutions, statutes, customs depend on a shared willingness to obey them.
That’s a matter that rests in character, in the heart.
It comes by power exerted from above and by a shared willingness to recognize and include each other, diverse as we are, equal to one another in the sight of God.
If you’re worried, as I am, about that essential quality that seems missing among the powerful, I hope you’ll find ways to nurture it where it really begins.
What would America be like without music in the schools? Without heroic efforts to help the hungry and those without homes? Without churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples where our common humanity connects with deep, universal truth? Where respectful behavior is grounded?
I don’t minimize how important global politics are, or how crucial it is to have an economy that provides fairly for all, how a government with the true consent of the people can give us all a decent chance in life. Leaders must make tough choices.
I had a glimmer of hope about our country, as I threaded through those thousand excited singers on my way out of Disney Hall.
I had heard and seen and felt that greatness begins in the heart, the soul, and yes, the voice.
*End notes
The Los Angeles Master Chorale is where I spend my time and treasure these days. It’s the only fully professional large chorus performing in America today, one review calling it “peerless.” Our visionary artistic director, Grant Gershon, hopes to make L.A. “a city that sings.” There are a few glimpses of the Chorale’s artistry on YouTube, with more to come. Take a look, perhaps beginning with this:
If you have an “out of sync child” with sensory processing difficulties, or know someone who does, you should know the work of my friend Carol Kranowitz. Concerned about kids who couldn’t enjoy music or the playground, she left teaching to study and then to write. Eleven books later, she is an expert who has helped many parents and kids. Learn about her and her work at https://out-of-sync-child.com/
So appreciate hearing from you in this way. Reminds me of why I always looked forward to hearing you preach.
Thank you for this spirited essay today. As to the endnote with Mr. Gershon's vision of LA as a "city that sings," it has been done city-wide before. When I served St. Luke-Williamsport, PA for five years, I learned about an embedded structure beyond Little League. Dr. Oscar Knade, the superintendent of schools from 1972-1992 recruited a chair of the music department at Gettysburg College, Dr. Kenneth Raessler, to implement an overarching K-12 music program in the school district including music in the classroom and vocal and instrumental perfromance across all grades. The centrally isolated town in Pennsylvania is still singing after 50 years with such a core civic identity. (It was also the city where the US Federal judge was incredulous, based on lack of any evidence, that Rudolph Guiliani thought he had a case of voter fraud in 2020. )