Facing the Music: Thoughts from the Festival

I read this sentence this morning and I can’t get it out of my head:

We have lost the joy of celebrating the success of fellow Americans.

There’s something true and very sad in there. But I’d probably write it differently: We have lost the joy of celebrating the success of people who don’t look like us. Or talk like us. Whose cultural expression is not identical to ours.

In fact, what I find so deeply troubling is that many people’s response to seeing that success is that it takes something away from them. Let’s face it: there’s an entire swath of white folks who see anything that doesn’t replicate and validate [their perception of] white culture as alarming, degenerate, even un-American.

Not only does this rob them of an essential element of being human, it’s also a motivating factor in some of the most hateful, authoritarian behavior this nation has ever seen. It’s not just damaging hearts, it’s breaking laws and crushing government.

If you’re wondering how this is going to end up being a local post, well…

I went to the Oakland Mills Fall Festival yesterday and soaked up the performance of the Oakland Mills High School Band and Poms. I am grateful for them. They brought me a lot of joy.

I went away thinking that, as a whole, they didn’t particularly look like my high school classmates back in suburban Connecticut in the 1970’s. My school was brand new and opened using a new bus/transportation plan to make the local schools more integrated. Perhaps they were on paper. In reality there were many tiny worlds of separation under one roof.

What a wonderful thing it is that I have been able to live in different communities since then and meet different kinds of people and experience different kinds of excellence. And joy. This isn’t because of any special qualities I have - - I don’t know how I came to feel this way. Having these life experiences has been a gift. I am joyful because I am still learning.

What a sad, angry world it must be for those who look at their neighbor and feel that they have nothing to learn and nothing to celebrate.

Of course, having the capacity to learn also means understanding things that enrage you and break your heart. Being open to the success of others also means being open to their pain and suffering.

That’s not fun or inspiring or heartwarming. It awkward and uncomfortable and upsetting and I hate it. I am not that great at it, either. But maybe the one gift must accompany the other.

I am still learning.

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