Pick Out A Simple Tune

In ‘Half a Sixpence’ Arthur Kipps feels out of place with the rich upper class. His speech, interests, and life experiences are very different from theirs. He gets out his banjo and, after a hesitant start, everyone joins in singing:

Pick out a simple tune.
Pick out a simple tune with rhythm.
People start to clap, your fingers snap
And then you find that your toes snap with them.
Some say differences can blight us.
I say music can unite us.
Noone’s immune if you pick out a simple tune.

Yesterday, at ‘Music for Wellbeing’, forty of us sung The Sound of Music’s ‘Edelweiss’, the Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’, sea shanties… Folks with dementia, heart conditions, Parkinsons Disease… different backgrounds, different life experiences… ‘Some say differences can blight us. I say music can unite us…’

The Princess of Wales made a statement yesterday: ‘I have been blown away by all the kind messages of support and encouragement over the last couple of months… I am making good progress, but as anyone going through chemotherapy will know, there are good days and bad days…

I am learning how to be patient, especially with uncertainty. Taking each day as it comes, listening to my body, and allowing myself to take this much needed time to heal…’

Most British people are very different from Kate; her cancer has made her like one of us.

Don Cormack describes the emerging Christian church in 1920’s Cambodia:

‘…those suffering from leprosy, the demon possessed, women, orphans, widows, the very poor, the darker skinned, ex-prisoners, hired labourers. The close-knit Christian community… being a ridiculed minority itself, provided a place of real understanding, security and love for all these other social outcasts – marginalised, unwanted and despised…’

Musing…

…Differences… politics, beliefs, interests, culture, sexuality, age, achievements, finances…

…The profound but simple tunes that can unite us – music, sickness, faith, love…

…St Paul’s words: ‘One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.’