Art and Singing and Hymns

Connects us and helps us remember there are no ordinary people.

Steps Unto Heaven

After my mother’s massive stroke, she was slowly, recovering. She stated that she wanted to go back to work (she was 89 and ran the biz she started with my father until her massive stroke).

Until then, I was her life line.

On Sundays, members of the local church would come over to visit her, pray and administer the Sacrament. My mother liked to get as dressed with her hair done, nice dress, and complete make up before they arrived.

I put on some hymns as I was getting her ready. The hymn, Nearer My God to Thee by the BYU Men’s Choir came on:

I leaned over to apply her mascara and her eyes were closed. She wasn’t asleep. She was in a prayerful, meditative state. The hymn was washing through her soul:

There let the way appear,
steps unto heaven;
all that thou sendest me,
in mercy given;
angels to beckon me
nearer, my God, to thee;

After the song, she opened her eyes. She was glowing. I knew then that she was taking the steps to heaven.

Birds Singing

I high school, I read, “The Red Badge of Courage” by Stephen Crane. One of the scenes that still resonates for me is Crane’s depiction of nature the day after a particularly brutal battle.

The birds were singing.

Typically birds sing when danger is not present. The book also portrayed that in spite of human’s fragility and senseless battles, nature goes on.

Last night, I learned that the USA entered another violent battle. I don’t know all the intricacies. I don’t know why a negotiated peace deal was abandoned in 2018.¹ And, I don’t know why it was imperative that the USA bomb now.

I merely know that war is hell. On this day, I think of Herman Wouk’s eloquence:

“In the glare, the great and terrible light of this happening, God seems to signal that the story of the rest of us need not end, and that the new light can prove a troubled dawn. (emphasis added)

For the rest of us, perhaps. Not for the dead, not for the more than fifty million real dead in the world's worst catastrophe: victors and vanquished, combatants and civilians, people of so many nations, men, women, and children, all cut down. For them there can be no new earthly dawn. Yet thought their bones like in the darkness of the grave, they will not have died in vain, if their remembrance can lead us from the long, long time of war to the time for peace.”

― Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance

Old Ways of Thinking

Humanity relapses into old ways of thinking and old ways to act. Adults who were sexually abused as children frequently lapse into a fearful unknowing of what will happen next. Sexual Abuse is primarily a crime of domination. Children cower in fear as the monsters are triggered by some chaotic need to dominate, control and inflict punishment—that the perpetrators conjure up in their own minds.

We, as a species, must bring our actions in line with our knowledge: domination is an old way of thinking and an archaic way to act. Abusing others, is at the perpetrators own peril.

There an no mere mortals

Until then, I remember we are taking our own steps unto heaven. We are all “Nearer My God To Thee.” I vow to continue my own healing, not let fear alter my knowledge that every single life on earth is sacred and extraordinary.

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”²

Continue healing. Listen to birds sing. And, always remember, “It is better to add to the light than fight the darkness.”³

1. https://apnews.com/article/iran-north-america-donald-trump-iran-nuclear-politics-6c7bbec22af14e03b85daa568b46533d

2. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

3. I wrote that after the USA attacked Afghanistan is search of Osama Bin Laden who was hiding in that country. I have it etched on a piece of glass in my home.