Changing the World

 Like everyone, every day I wake and expect the world to be as I want it. I want 15 more people suddenly signed up for my Jazz Course in New Orleans. I want the Warriors to turn around their losing streak, with Steph back on the court. I want the weather to stay in the mid-70’s without a strong Spring wind. I want Ingram book distributors to sign me up and get my books easily available nation-and-world-wide. And my usual Orff book dealers to order 50 of each title at a time instead of 1 or 2 every month. I want all the music teachers I’ve trained over the years to invite me to their schools to read my book Jazz, Joy & Justice to the kids. And all the gods in heaven know I want every single one of the heinous traitors in Washington and the entire Epstein gang to get their just desserts, be removed from power and moved to prisons—and not the posh white-collar kinds. Shall I go on?

And yet. If every one of my little wishes were instantly granted, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and cancer would still wreak havoc on those I know and love, another Charlie Kirk might rise up, extreme weather would still wreak its havoc. And I would still be addicted to the world fulfilling my every whim and desire, being disappointed or sad or outraged when it didn’t and spend my precious time left on the planet whining and complaining. 

 

By my side as I write is an anthology titled The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness and Joy, a needed reminder to step off the carousel of desire, to sit and breathe and savor. (Amidst my recent posts refusing to wait for a savior, I notice that one letter changes savior to savor and that letter is I. I feel a poem coming on!) In his introduction to the book, editor John Brehm writes: 

 

“Freedom from craving and from fixed ideas of self lets us experience the world as a friendly place…When we let go of insisting that we are who we think we are and that the world should give us exactly and only what we think we want, all things shine forth.”

 

Of course, I will do everything in my power to try to change the world by “being the change I want to see in the world.” I will keep lobbying for music in the schools, keep training music teachers to make their teaching worthy of the kids, keep voting, keep marching on the streets (this Saturday!), keep reading about what has been so terribly wrong in our history to be sufficiently prepared to steer things toward what has been right. But alongside the deep desire to change the world is the deep wisdom to accept the world. It’s a both/and proposition and not an easy rope to walk across and keep your balance. 

 

This entire post inspired by this simple and thought-provoking poem by a poet named A.R. Ammons. The title Old Geezer attracted my attention and then this surprising poem: 

 

The quickest

way

to change

 

the

world

is to

 

like it

the

way it

 

is. 

 

And sometimes I do.