Grace (sing along)

 I had the idea for the whole world to sing along for peace, hoping my invite would go viral. Instead NO ONE CAME. Not one person, not my friends, not my family. I wonder why?

But though it made me feel ineffectual, it didn't sting. And I can't help but wonder if it was because I let go of it that I was given a kind of grace that far exceeded my plans. When I got to Strawberry Fields there was already a performer there and he was singing "Imagine", the very song I was going to start my sing-along with. This amazed me. I had slipped into grace, which was SOOO much bigger than me, yet included me. 

Kachuk, from Argentina, was the name of the performer. He was very good, and had the crowd singing along. It was almost as if the whole world was ALREADY singing along. I didn't have to help it happen. It was already happening. Or maybe I did have to wish for it, or put myself out there, or something.

I sang along with Kachuk for a half hour as he went through the Beatles' catalog, watching the people, transported. Then I put the playlist on my headphones, got on my bike and sang along as I rode through the park. It was glorious.

At one point in the playlist I included John Cage's 4'33'', which, if you don't know, is just 4'33'' of silence. At first it was hard to stop listening to music and listen to the park. I felt a little bored, like I was in absentia or something.  But I kept listening, and I heard the sounds of voices. I followed them until I got to a protest, an Israeli protest, hundreds of blue flags. It was the Palestinians that I had been grieving for,  but here was the pain of the other side made manifest. And I felt tears welling up. These felt like holy tears, like I had been searching for them. That's what I heard in Cage's silence.

The thing that I needed was to sing with other people, and to cry, and the way it came to me felt like grace. 

Why can't this same kind of grace be given to those suffering in the Middle East? 

The rest of the bicycle sing-along I was in a rare state of spiritual euphoria, a heightened gem-like flame of being. 

Who does this help, but me?