Yesterday, pat of butter on a sea of grits alerted us in the morning that something had gone horribly wrong in Norway. Later, GlowNZ let us know just how unimaginably horrific the two separate terrorist events were/are regarding the number of victims -- over 90, mostly children.
I have read every update, prayed (not in the magical but remembrance sense) since then. The courage of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg to stand behind Democracy rather than on the ashes of thousands with a blow horn was remarkable. Please see Nulwee's Their Answer is More Democracy, Ours Was to Shop
I am one of those people who needs solace in the arts -- mostly music -- when tragedy hits. On 9/11 when I realized I wasn't flying out of Baltimore back to Connecticut after attending my younger sister's funeral, I played Bach -- I needed comfort, soaring notes and familiarity while a muted teevee assaulted my eyes with non-stop carnage.
I wrote a thesis in graduate school on Henrik Ibsen's Little Eyolf. It is a play probably most folks haven't read or seen -- unlike A Doll House or Hedda Gabler. I remembered my studies of Knut Hamsun -- another brilliant Norwegian writer. Both portrayed a darkness in a selected underbelly of their society. I needed today to wrench myself from literature. Ironically, I found it in the Norwegian National Anthem. It is a hymn. It is a prayer. I didn't bother to find a translation because none is needed --like the time I watched the movie "Weeping Camel" and couldn't figure out how to set the subtitles.
I'm a mixed bag regarding religiousity. I do believe in prayer -- because it is a remembrance, not magic. I do believe in Walt Whitman's sense of the universe -- birth through death. Those who take the time to read this far -- please listen to this most exquisite anthem/hymn and remember the victims, families, friends and a small, distraught nation.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
. . . .
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
-- Walt Whitman -- "Song of Myself"
thinking as an old man -- not a child cut down before adulthood