Our friend Sharmon had recommended the concert as she was singing in one of the choruses and knew we'd be in for something special. The main event was a full performance of Vaughan Williams' Sancta Civitas. I was utterly transported. Although the libretto was printed in the program, I was so captivated by the gorgeous sound of voices gathering and coming to meet in the large, airy space of the church that I was content just to listen.
Out of my contentment, during and long after the performance, I became very sad. Vaughan Williams had, in the years just before writing this magnificent massed choral piece, been serving as a medic on the bloody battlefields of World War I. The slaughter of innocents and the degradation of human worth that this terrible war exposed him to was to alter Williams' whole life. The Sancta Civitas is rarely performed because of its need of so many skilled singers and a space capacious enough to hold such magnitude. It was Williams' favorite.
Rising and falling in intensity, in grief and solace, in innocence forever snuffed out, the music had me held hovering over the battlefield. Even as I mourn the great suffering of war, my hands drawn to cradle my aching heart, I feel the righteous indignation growing in my belly, a voice rising from deep inside me calling out, NO MORE WAR.
Back in January, I wrote about my getting drafted to fight in Vietnam. My story has both suspense and humor. [http://tinyurl.com/kxnzbag & http://tinyurl.com/m5kl3o3] But I never found anything humorous about that war. Young men who weren't fortunate enough to get a deferment for college were drafted in great numbers to go fight and kill and get maimed and die for what? Does one's birth into this affluent country come with a price tag that one is then asked to unquestioningly step up to get trained to fight and kill, if not because of getting drafted, then because it's the one job that a young person can find that will give them a sense of purpose, of dignity, of patriotism?
Together with a lot of my schoolmates (at Stanford) and certainly my family, I have always spoken and acted out against these horrible wars of choice. How can I be "patriotic" when we're not fighting for our values and our freedom, but for the Military-Industrial Complex? Although many of us knew from the start that we were invading Iraq so that fat cats could control more oil fields, we all must look this straight in the eye and respond from our consciences. Goofy Warmonger Bush was a willing puppet to the Chaneys and the Roves. They lied to Congress and to the American people, and once again fortunes were made and blood was spilled.
The sad and beautiful Sancta Civitas still resounds in my soul. I look at the children and my heart cries, they were not born to be brutalized by violence and weaponry. We must disarm and turn toward the light. We must walk together and talk together, break bread together and sing, everyone, sing.
Namasté, dear reader.