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The soundscape finds us on a busy street where the song of birds competes with honking car horns and idling truck engines. The children at a nearby bus stop chatter among themselves as they enter the familiar yellow vehicle, some scraping their feet on the floor of the bus before taking their seats. It is just another day in a life of education and socialization for this generation. You can hear and feel the curiosity and sense of belonging in the young voices. Nothing special here unless we take the view that all of it is special and important – just as each child and each family member and every relationship is special and important in the grand scheme of things.
Gun shots are suddenly fired in the middle of this world, which could easily be the Cincinnati neighborhood of Evanston where two drive-by shootings happened this past week. 39-year-old Yarsellay Sammie Sr. and 16-year-old Javeir Randolph were shot on the same day within a mile radius of one another. As I reflect on these two deaths, I’m left wondering: “What do the words of my chosen mantra – You stretch out your hand and save me, your hand will do all things for me – mean for these children of God?” I visualize the dead bodies lying there on Evanston’s asphalt floor while the school bus continues its journey. It is another day in a life of education and socialization for this generation. You can hear the dripping of rain on fabric. It is part of the constant dripping of sorrow and pain in this depressed neighborhood. How can the people living there continue to live their lives amid all the random violence? Meanwhile, far away from the inner city, the cry of a flock of loons in distress argues, in my imagination, for the oneness of all beings. The loons cry out on behalf of the slain victims in my make-believe vision. They cry out on behalf of God, who has no voice except through the divine spirit ringing like a bell within all creation. The spirit rings out a song of danger and it rings out a warning. Without sufficient love between brothers and sisters, there goes you or I, fatally wounded.
After they have given us God’s message, the loons flap their wings against the waters and lift their bodies heavenward. In unhurried grandeur, they elevate themselves, carrying with them the souls of Yarsellay and Javeir; that’s how I see it. Into the light of peace and eternal prayer they go.
The rest of the soundscape meditation is me playing my guitar and continuing the mantra: You stretch out your hand and save me, your hand will do all things for me. “Never give up on your holy mantra” my meditation teacher repeats tirelessly. The advice, so often repeated, is itself a mantra underneath the mantra. In other words, never give up. This is what is required of us as long as places like Evanston mourns its random dead. It is hard not turn to away from sorrows like this. And it is so, so easy not to act justly and not to love tenderly and not to walk humbly with a humble God in the face of human victimization. “What does God require of us in the face of the Evaston murders and so many other acts of human violence?” A modern bell ringer named Bayard Rustin answered that question in this way: “What God requires of us” he said “is that we not stop trying.” Always hold a holy mantra in your heart and prepare yourself for challenges to it. Never give up on your holy mantra.
The bells begin to ring louder and louder near the end of the soundscape meditation. Time to wake up the world to what is happening here. Maybe God really is stretching out a hand to save us. Even though we may not know what to do about the events of Evanston last week, we can reply to this psalm verse with another one. “To you Lord I stretch out my hands” (Psalm 88:9.) Once the bells have got our attention and the storms have cleared the horizon of our hearts and minds, once, that is, we are restored within, we can go about our business, as the Quaker John Woolman advises, of “turning all the treasures we possess into the channel of universal love”. All the treasures we can ever possess are available right here in this painful moment. This is one way of describing what I have tried to illustrate in this soundscape meditation. I Give You Thanks: A Soundscape Meditation is a guided tour into the channel of universal love – right now and right here where we are.
In the presence of the angels I will bless you. I will adore before your holy temple...
You stretch out your hand and save me, your hand will do all things for me. Amen.
First written on October 24, 2021
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