The Day of Resurrection! Earth, Tell It Out Abroad!

We are just home from three days in New York City, where Times Square and two concerts by the San Franscisco Symphony in Carnegie Hall served as bookends for a marvelous experience.

Times Square represented, for us, the hustle and bustle of that great city--unbelievably energetic and diverse. People of every tribe and nation, it seemed, moved by us in our hotel, on our many walks, and at breakfast every morning. Our waitress yesterday was Georgian (the nation formerly tied to Russia). Parisians, Germans, and Poles were everywhere. Our cab dribers were from Bangladesh. While waiting for our shuttle to return to the airport, Alyce sat down next to a Swede waiting with his family to be picked up by a relative from Jersey. Jews, Serbs, Moslems were well also in evidence--as were blacks and whites and Asians and Hispanics. It was a feast and we loved it.

The capstone came, though, the final night at Carnegie Hall where we were treated to a really stellar rendition of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, with full orchestra and a chorus of about 120 voices. The sound was enormous and the stillness of the concert-goers amazing. You could hear a pin drop in the pauses and pianissimos Mahler had structured into the music. Faces everywhere were totally intent on what was going on below. Some were even trying to direct the orchestra themselves as hands moved back and forth and sighs were shared among strangers now become neighbors.

I sat there thinking--deeply moved myself--how the life we all so much hunger for needs to be experienced in our engagements with one another as human beings, no matter when and no matter where. But when all is said and done, it is only when real majesty moves in that the walls between us are broken down and our spirits joined into one.

Today is the beginning once more of such a season--Palm Sunday leading through Holy Week to Easter and the resurrection of our Lord from the dead. To behold it is to be moved, not least because in the beholding we are all reduced to our humanity by God's incredible love and sustaining power. No one wanted to leave on Friday night when the concert was finally over, for great music and inspired musicians had filled us with joy and given us hope. Ought Holy Week do anything less among us?

Two things linger in our minds. The first is how good it was to be in New York and experience what we did in that sea of humanity. The second is how important it now becomes to witness in our humanity to all we felt there, and share it in such a way as to help bring healing and wholeness to the otherwise scattered and fractious world all around us these days.