Sometimes it feels like the world is old and tired. We are desolated by an election that showed just how far we have lost our way. We have lost scent of truth like a hound turning haplessly in circles sniffing forlornly. And then someone shows us something that elevates the spirit and makes us smile again.
For me, this someone was my long-ago ex-student Lee Pochapin, who posted this wonderful video of the Rockin’1000, an Italian project of one thousand volunteer musicians performing David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel”. Watching it I personally felt the spirit of those thousands who built the great cathedrals so many centuries ago, cathedrals that are often the subject of this blog. To see such a communal spirit, working selflessly in common, makes me understand how those structures came to exist. The builders were singing the songs of the cathedrals, for where but in music can a multitude act freely in perfect unison?
Watching this made me feel for just a short moment like that young boy looking out in wonder at the people cheering him and all the others with their instruments. It makes me feel part of something larger again, something greater than my our little world. For that, I have to be thankful. Thanks, Lee.
Ambulatory, Cathédrale Saint-Etienne, Bourges (Indre) Photo by Dennis Aubrey
Thank you so much from the bottom of my very depressed heart. This is the most uplifting thing I’ve seen or heard since the election.
Know exactly how you feel, Cynthia Thanks.
THANK YOU!!!!! More than you can imagine, you have renewed my hope!!!! I almost feel alive again! 🙂 Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year!
Loretta, I felt the same way when I saw this posted by Lee Pochapin, a long-time friend who I haven’t actually seen in many years.
Fantastic ! What fun. Thanks.
Exactamente!!!!
Awesome! Grazie, Dennis e PJ! Adesso mi sento moltissimo bene 🙂
This is wonderful, and you are so right about the power of the communal spirit. Thank you for sharing the video, and all the best to you and PJ for the hollidays.
This bad tide will turn the other way…..I hope!
We fervently hope so, we pray so.
Wonderful!
Dennis – it’s no consolation for the feeling that the US has lost its way – but UK did the same earlier in the year. Scenes like this show that people can work and play together across the world and provide a lift to us all. There’s a phrase (in Homer?) – “Every tide turns”.
Doug, it is a heavy weight to wake up in the morning and read the news. Thanks for your consolation.