In the heart of any adversity there is always a moment of pure and transcendental beauty – when humanity acts selflessly to support or raise each other up despite the confusion and chaos around them. It’s a moment when we understand what it would be like if we were all the best we could be.
Of course, none of us are the best we can be all the time.
We’re human, and our capacity for compassion and creation is matched (if not at times exceeded) only by that for selfishness and pettiness.
These moments of heartfelt inspiration don’t have to be grand heroic gestures either, and they don’t have to come in the midst of great tragedy. The firefighter pulling survivors out of rubble and field medics treating children in a war zone are inspiring; no doubt about it.
But I can be just as moved by folks taking time for a moment of silence, or pulling their car over to the shoulder and removing their hat for a funeral procession.
Simple acts of respect and recognition.
I also think about those spontaneous displays of public music we would see on social media in the early days of the COVID lockdown, when entire city blocks would join their voices in chorus from their balconies, or musicians would serenade their neighborhood from the fire escape.
These moments didn’t solve the greater problems. They didn’t cure the virus or heal the sick. But in a moment of uncertainty, they were a balm for some. In a moment when science and technology were still working to solve the problem, art helped us hold on to hope.
It really can be that simple sometimes.
And not just during a global pandemic.
In a viral video that recently appeared in one of my media feeds, an opera troupe disguised as supermarket shoppers performs a piece from an upcoming show. They begin with one loan male singer, his bright, clear, tenor reverberating through the vegetable aisle, before he’s joined by a female colleague from the next aisle over. Before long the entire “staff” of the market have joined their “customers” in the performance, while the actual customers look on. Some pull out their phones to record. Others bemusedly take in the surreal scene.
But all wear smiles.
Sure, it may have been a bit of a marketing ploy for the local opera. That’s a cynical, but realistic and factual take.
But if I had been in the grocery store that day, I’d like to think I’d have felt as if something magical was happening, not that I was inadvertently caught up in a commercial.
Because in a world as chaotic and uncertain and contentious as this one often is, we need that kind of beauty more than ever.
