Remember everything I told you, keep it in your heart like a stone /And when the winds have blown-the winds have blown things round and back again /what was once your pain will be your home /All around the table the white-haired men have gathered /Spilling their sons' blood like table wine/ Remember everything in its own time/ The music whispers you in urgency hold fast to that languageless connection/ A thread of known that was unknown and unseen seen dangling from inside the fifth direction /Boys around the table mapping out their strategies/ Kings all of mountains one day dust/ A lesson learned a loving God and things in their strategies/ Kings all of mountains one day dust /A lesson learned a loving God and things in their own time/ In nothing more do I trust /We own nothing, nothing is ours /Not even love so fierce it burns like baby stars /But this poverty is our greatest gift /The weightlessness of us as things around begin to shift/ Remember everything I told you, keep it in your heart like a stone/ And when the winds have blown things round and back again/ What was once your pain will be your home /Everything in its own time/ Everything in its own time
I especially love the phrase, "What was once your pain, will be your home." I'm sorry, Emily, but your music is not secular, to me!
The chapter that taught me the most was chapter six, Music Divides Us, because it talks about not letting your personal preferences divide you in your relationships with other people. Emily says on page 103 about some people's extreme distaste for rap music,
"But whenever someone is borderline vitriolic about not liking music, I think there is something deeper going on than simply taste. When people say, "I hate that music," they are really saying, "I hate that culture."
That quote really shook me up, as I used to be one of the ones who was "borderline vitriolic" about not liking that particular type of music. I held onto the images of misogynistic rap that caught my attention, but I never looked deeper for proof that there may be other songs with redeeming value and so I slighted a whole culture. By examining my bias, I feel I am now freer to explore other genres of music that I would have previously overlooked. And more importantly, I am freer to appreciate other cultures and be a friend to others.
I enjoyed this book, because it gave me an insight into the mind of Emily Saliers and her father, but I wish that it had had specific musical ideas to practice that might help bring me closer to Godde. Perhaps one day I can come up with some of my own! One day I will also have to read this book again, as I read it in the hospital when my mind was still very spacey and I often had trouble concentrating. I'm sure I would get a lot out of reading it at least one more time.
My Blog Recommendations:
If we were making health decisions based on evidence we would have long ago suspended the practice of recommending dieting on the basis that there is no evidence that would lead us to believe that it is possible for most people and there is evidence to suggest that it may be dangerous. One of the reasons that dieting continues to be recommended by healthcare “professionals” who should know better is that they are confusing what they think for what they know. That’s dangerous, and for those who get paid to sell weight loss it borders on perpetrating a fraud.
Free sexual expression allows us to feel fully human. And anything that helps us colonized peoples—Black, Brown, Indigenous—to know how fully human we are is dangerous. That is why we live in a world hell-bent on regulating our expressions of sexuality.
The Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision brought an end to segregation in schools, and for the first time, Black students were exposed to White teachers. This has not necessarily been positive for Black children. The history that is taught in schools is framed through a lens of White supremacy, with additives like Black History Month being thrown to mask enormous inequalities in education. Today’s students are forced to learn the oppressor’s truth by a white supremacist educational system that presents heavy-handed biases into history, language, and even the arts.
When I was about seven or eight, I sort of obliquely come into contact with the idea that there are people who like to lure children away to hurt them. I didn't really understand what that meant, but I knew it was bad, and I knew, somehow even at that young age, that it was somehow my responsibility to prevent myself from falling into the grips of a predator. The rape culture does start its indoctrination early.
Why are we teaching our kids how to avoid being bullied and to have sympathy for bullies, instead of teaching them how not to be a bully?
Hope Is Real
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