Lyricist of Life

Music is timeless. It’s voice never stops and always pierces to the soul of those who listen. Music brings joy to your heart like an embrace of an old friend. But music can also touch the sorrow and pain in our soul much like the unwelcome news of a lost loved one. It has the ability to bring revolution…to bring change.

Some of the greatest lyricists and songwriters have transformed how we communicate and relate to each other and our world. Listen to the words and envision the timelessness of the following lyrics:

words by john lennon

Imagine there’s no Heaven 
It’s easy if you try 
No hell below us 
Above us only sky 
Imagine all the people 
Living for today 

Imagine there’s no countries 
It isn’t hard to do 
Nothing to kill or die for 
And no religion too 
Imagine all the people 
Living life in peace 

You may say that I’m a dreamer 
But I’m not the only one 
I hope someday you’ll join us 
And the world will be as one 

Imagine no possessions 
I wonder if you can 
No need for greed or hunger 
A brotherhood of man 
Imagine all the people 
Sharing all the world 

You may say that I’m a dreamer 
But I’m not the only one 
I hope someday you’ll join us 
And the world will live as one 

Did your hear the gentle piano playing in the background as the teacher helps us cope with the violence of world all the while composing a new reality? Pictures of extreme poverty, slavery and war flash through the mind and invoke strong feelings. Faces of the people whose lives violence has touched play across my mind

The victims in Cairo (both Muslim and Christian)…
The struggle for life by mothers, daughters and sons in war-torn neighborhoods…
The hate and anger that fuel people to acts of unimaginable violence…
The desecration of humanity (maybe our own) as others are enslaved by poverty, sex trades and greed…
And one that has burned an image into my soul, the joyous dancing at the death of another…

But also pictures of hope. Pictures of humanity living together in peace embracing the life in the other.

Another lyricist would compose…

Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? 

Another lyricist would gently sing…

lyrics by foy vance

If there’s one thing that I know
It is that two shades of hope
One the enlightening soul
And the other is more like a hangman’s rope

Well it’s true, you may reap what you sow
But not that despair is the all-time low
Baby, hope deals the hardest blows

There’s once someone I loved
Whose heart overflowed his cup
And his shoes got covered in blood
Oh but he never knew 
Cause he only looked up
Well he was a troubled soul
Who’d known pain more than most I know
Yet it was hope that dealt the hardest blows

And the girl that holds the hand of
Of a somewhat distant man
Though she did everything she can
Still his heart set sail for a distant land
And she wonders sometimes if he knows
How she feels like a trampled rose
Baby, hope deals the hardest blows

Aaah oooh baby 
Oooh, oh oh

Well some people think their sin 
Caused the cancer that’s eating into them
And the only way they can win
Is by the healing of somebody’s hands on their skin
But when the cancer does not go
Baby hope dealt the hardest blows

And now all these truths are sold
With foundations below them
That were dug out in winter’s cold
When the world stole our young and prayed on the old

Well hope deals in the hardest blows
Yet I cannot help myself but hope

I guess that’s why love hurts
And heartache stings
And despair’s never worse
Than the despair that earth brings

But hope deals the hardest blows, dear
The hardest…
Hope deals the hardest blows

Pain and hope always seem to be composed together. Hope is the longing for the harmonious chord while the  dissonance  of pain and violence is being sung. Sometimes that hopeful chord comes and at other times the listener is left waiting.

One of my favorite lamenting songs is written by Thomas Moore.

words by thomas moore

 

Oh, Thou who dries the mourner’s tear,

How dark this would would be,

If pierced by sins and sorrows here

We could not fly to Thee!

 

The Friends who in our sunshine live

When winter comes are flown;

And he who has but tears to give

Must weep those tears alone.

 

Oh who could bear life’s stormy doom

Did not Thy wing of love come

Brightly wafting through the gloom

Our Peace Branch from above.

 

Then sorrow touch’d by Thee

Grows bright as more than rapture’s ray

Reveals the glorious shades of light

We never saw by day!

May these lyrics bless you and provide that hopeful chord amidst the pain and violence in your life.

Voices from Darfur

I had the opportunity today to go and listen to a couple of refugees from the Darfur genocide. There names were Ibrahim Mousa Adam and Daoud Hari.

Ibrahim grew up in the village of Jadara in Northern Darfur where he worked as a farmer and volunteered as a teacher. In July of 2003, Ibrahim’s village was attacked by the Sudanese Army and the Janjaweed. 80 people were murdered that day. 20 of those 80 people where family members of Ibrahim. Over 100 of his relatives now live in six different refugee and internally displaced persons camps in Darfur and Chad. He would like to someday have a job that allows him to move back to Jadara and help rebuild Darfur. He told stories of the atrocities that are happening today.

Daoud Hari comes from Musbat, a village in the northern part of Darfur, where he worked with his family raising sheep and camels. Daoud fled his village in Darfur after months of bombings by the Sudanese government. When Daoud reached a refugee camp in neighboring Chad, he risked his life by re-entering Darfur to translate for the New York Times, BBC, and National Geographic and aid workers. Last summer, Daoud was arrested on false espionage charges with Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Salopek and subsequently tortured. He spent one month and ten days in prison. His attitude was such that he expected to die every day. He was released only when Mexico Governor Bill Richardson negotiated their release. The United States soon after granted Daoud refugee status. He has recently testified before Congress three times.

Both Ibrahim and Daoud spoke about the many injustices happening each and every day in Darfur. They spoke of how help was needed today not tomorrow on behalf of the estimated 2 million displaced refugees of Darfur. 3.5 million rely on international aid to survive every day. To date over 5,000 villages have been bombed and burned down, over 400,000 Darfuris have been murdered.

I listened in amazement and wonder at their courage and passion. The horror they have experienced and seen is far more than humanity should bear. But Ibrahim and Daoud don’t back down. They fight back not with more killing and atrocities. The fight back with the stories that will change the future of an oppressed people. Their ammunition is not bullets but stories of real people.

So the war continues. The Sudanese government and the Janjaweed fight with ammunition and bombs and the Darfuris fight back with stories of atrocities.

The question is how can we make a difference? You can click on the Save Darfur link. You can write, email the President of the United States or UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said,

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

He also said,

“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.“

So what is your voice going to say about the injustices happening in the world? I would love to hear your voice.

Voices from Darfur