Like many places throughout our country, our town strongly supported our high school's football team. During those days in which the society at large was so divided, the Friday night football field was a place of unity and pride. And during the darkest days of suspicion and anger over racial integration, the students and coaches on the team provided a lasting metaphor that lowered the temperature of the hatred that had simmered since reconstruction. They shared a ladle. In those long-ago days, there weren't dozens of squeeze bottles of sports drinks on the sidelines, with students whose job it was to squirt the liquid through the faceguards of the athletes. There was just a water bucket on the bench, with a ladle in it. So thirsty students had to come to the bench, remove their helmet (revealing the color of their face), and drink from the ladle. As the athletes cooled down, so did the ridiculous fears of the people who thought contact with the people of the other race would result in some sort of contamination.
Racial integration dominated the needs of communities in my youth, but there is never a shortage of reasons for today's society to learn to share with one another, and reduce their level of suspicion and fear. If I watch too much political coverage on television, or fail to reach the "mute" button when the campaign ads interrupt a program, I can easily hear a message that says I should suspect all my neighbors, most of my friends, and even my own government. Nothing should be shared, I am on my own.
Just as the false premises that propped up racial discrimination were undone by the sharing of a water ladle, today's falsehoods regarding our shared lives in a time of financial uncertainty can be disproved by those of us whose work brings art to the community. The words our neighbors hear on "news" channels, chatrooms and around water coolers are bleak and ugly. We must bring them poetry of beauty and meaning. The sounds they hear are desperate and hyperbolic, with each headline accompanied by a sound effect to increase its impact, and drive-time radios tuned to shrill voices of dropouts who now have all the answers. We must bring them the sounds of compositions whose form and structure lead to serene understanding, and whose melody and harmony lead to aesthetic sensibility. And the people our neighbors see around them look like them. They have been taught to fear others from financial, social, political or religious groups different from their own. We must exhibit choirs and orchestras, libraries and museums, whose art and artists are different from one another, and whose beauty is enhanced by the diversity. We must unapologetically insist that if our neighbors will share our artistic ladle, their thirst will be satisfied.
As the artists of the community, we must show how important community can be. We are richer when we are sharing than when we are hoarding. We are safer when we are trusting than when we are suspecting. Our concerts can become the events in which the disparate parts of our society sit together, observe an act of unselfish beauty, and learn to live together. A poor person can observe the singing of a rich choir member and experience beauty rather than resentment. A rich person can hear the playing of a poor person and observe diligence and discipline, and stop blaming them for their poverty. Liberals and conservatives can see each other as multi-dimensional people, rather than as caricatures. And our rehearsals can be places of level ground, where "artist" is our label, and other criteria are not used to judge one another.
Financially difficult times have left us all thirsty. As artists, a fountain of beauty is ours to distribute. We should invite everyone to drink, and pass the ladle until all are satisfied.
