A song to sing

Someone once told me that everyone has something significant to say. I'd like to think that everyone, from every societal persuasion, from every corner of the globe has a song to sing. Rosemarie Freeney Harding writes of a certain Bernice Johnson Reagon who talked about the transforming power of singing in mass meetings of the Southern freedom movement.Her story reflected how the 'songs changed the atmosphere, becoming an almost palpable barrier..giving the marchers an internal girding that allowed them to move without fear.'

Not only in the Southern freedom movement, but in Southern Africa where the curse of apartheid for so long resisted the song of the African toiling in the heat, just as oppressive as his white 'baas.' With beads of sweat cascading down a burnt face, the only bit of magic for him to rely on, to keep his spade moving in a rhythym that was all his own, was his song. From inside his soul, where you swore there lived a 100-voice choir instructed to sing enchanting songs...songs that come only from those who knew that while oppressors keep your hands tied, they can no more suppress your song than they can the air that fills you with breath to sing again.

In these extraordinary times on the planet, where will you and I be found. In a quiet room drowned by deafening silence or, whether alone or a part of a greater chorus, lifting OUR song. A freedom song perhaps, freedom from our own limitations, our own inhibitions, a song that lifts the soul with it's soothing melody and effortless harmony...and it may be that on occassion, we have to use words!