National Anthem

I heard the news. I read the news. I'm thankful I don't watch news because I can't take anymore. The written descriptions of Las Vegas are enough.

I had to step away and pull out the Juneau Empire whose main story was about the Juneau man who can tie cherry stems with his tongue. I drank my coffee, talked to my chickens, dressed all in black (I'm not sure Johnny Cash would appreciate the glazed donut streak on my black pants, but I still carried a "bit of darkness on my back") and I headed out to wander the woods.


And rant.

I needed to rant. To get out all the things I'm so sure are wrong with our world and who's to blame out of my head. I ranted to the dog and ravens. My beloved children have taught me the ineffectiveness of ranting to people. Ranting about putting laundry away or unpacking backpacks is nearly as effective as bashing my head against the wall. I got it out of my system; I realized I don't have any amazing answers or good people to blame. Then I dug through my brain for some kind of soothing balm.

I landed on Tuesday night's national anthem. Tuesday night was a huge volleyball game with the stands full of Thunder Mountain and Juneau Douglas football players, friends, parents, and fans. The air was already electric with the cross town rivalry. 


I know and love the young woman who stepped out to sing the national anthem to this crowd. She blanked. She started the anthem twice and blanked. Then something lovely happened. She started it a third time and we all sang. The football players, friends, parents, and even the volleyball players sang what words they knew to the tune they could carry and we lifted the song of our nation when it faltered.

I'm not a fan of national anthem performances so this was exactly what the anthem should be. We all risked raising our voices the best we could. Even with our differences, we offered what we had and the song filled the space and I saw more than one teary eye.

I'm pretty convinced we need fewer public rants and more leaders who make space for every voice when the national song falters. We need fewer egomaniacs and more who are willing to risk being part of a song that is bigger than themselves.

And as the rants start, when I am tempted to join in the vomiting of what is wrong with this world and who is to blame, I will remember the quote from Dale Earnhardt Jr. in today's paper.

I am about to quote something from NASCAR. The closest I've come to NASCAR was on the Autobahn when I made race car sounds and a running commentary on my maneuvers, but our Monday paper is pathetic so once I finished the cherry stem article, it was either the Classifieds or the full page article on Earnhardt.

So here's the quote from Earnhardt that feels like a bit of a balm in our broken world, "I don't always claim to be right, but I think in transparency in conversation and compassion you can learn from others. There is only one way to sort of do that and that is by communication and sharing."

Transparency, learning, compassion, sharing . . . those are probably some helpful words as we wrestle through the faltering of our national song.