Go to church is rarely if ever on my calendar. Weddings, christenings, funerals and sometimes big holidays, Christmas and Easter, particularly if there is a nearby cathedral with an outstanding choir singing stirring hymns, might get me into a pew. When we visited York for Christmas a few years back, we went to York Minster Cathedral, the center of Christianity in North England since the 7th Century, to hear the choir and stayed for the entire Anglican service because the Archbishop of York was delivering the sermon. He spoke of comfort and calmed the entire congregation to silence and a deep collective sigh of relief. We got to meet him on the way out of the cathedral and shook his hand. He was friendly, the kind of man you wanted to listen to and believe in.
The hymns were great. I know we sang along, but I don’t remember if we sang my favorite hymn, “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” I always belt out the opening lines to that one. Then I get to about the third line. My voice drops. I choke back tears. I am not alone. I can hear the volume of all the voices echoing in any church or cathedral where I’ve sung that hymn drop. The rustling of tissues and hankies, sniffling and throat clearing fills the air. I read a lot into that. Seems to me, many people share the same wish, peace, to be brothers, kindness, to make a better world.
Over the last five months or so, I find myself singing or humming so no one will hear me “Let there be peace on earth. And let it begin with me.” Sometimes that lyric loops through my head, a mantra, a dream of renewed empathy and kindness, a belief that if so many people cry to this song, they have to want the same peace I do and there has to be hope for our country and the world.
Lyrics “Let There Be Peace on Earth”: http://www.jan-leemusic.com/Site/Copyrighted_Lyrics.html
