Recently I saw Celine Dion in concert, and as I sat there listening to songs of love and heartbreak, struggle and triumph, I looked around at all the faces in the auditorium, all the different types of people. Everyone united here to listen, to feel, to laugh and cry, everyone having experienced their own love, their own heartbreak, all struggling and all triumphing in their individual experiences.
The artist struts onto the stage--doesn't matter who--Bruno Mars, Chelsea Grin, Pink, and so many other performers and genres and people--and everybody cheers. Hands and vocal chords rise and create a symphony of appreciation. When the artist hits the high notes, arms go into the air and voices escape, compelled to encourage in a frenzy of uncontainable emotion. Songs of love, struggle, and compassion.
Recommended for you
The lights pule around the stage, a sequined dress shimmers. Eyes close, a rush of excitement send the heart skipping, smiles spread. It does not matter who you are in this moment, What the person next to you believes or where they are from, A wife leans on her husband's shoulder, friends clutch each other's hands, a daughter with her mother, a man with his husband all gathered together, all sharing this moment, all feeling the emotion of the lyrics, the rhythm of the beat--Nevada, Kentucky, Canadian, Vietnamese, white and black, gay and straight.
The room chills and goose flesh forms like tectonic plates forming a mountain range on the flesh. It warms up and coats shed, a color wheel of skin tones combining to form the masterpiece of the world. We are all one. We all operate the same way, bleeding, breathing, living, dying--listening to music just as the sun rises and sets all over the world, mountain ranges, plateaus, volcanoes, canyons all rise and fall from the movement beneath the Earth. We are one and we are diverse.
"We are a nation of communities... a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky." - George H. W. Bush
