This is a blog about joy, in manifold expressions. Right now that can feel like a hard commodity to come by for many of us, maybe much of the time for some of us. I find myself searching for it without even being aware that I’m searching for it. After an hour of pandemic doomscrolling, sometimes I’ll hop over to YouTube for affirmations of the irreducible goodness that we are so capable of.
Nowhere is this ever expressed more transparently and vocally than in children, of course. We each have our own experiences of being in the presence of the grace of children, experiences that will remain with us until we ourselves no longer remain.
For me, this experience was realized most indelibly when I visited India about five years ago. I became a volunteer for an organization called the Pardada Pardadi Educational Society, or PPES, located in India. Translated from Hindi, Pardada Pardadi means “great-grandfather and great grand-mother”, as PPES often plays a role akin to this for its community. Begun in 2000 by an indomitable visionary named Sam Singh in a village on the shores of the Ganges, PPES now educates girls at every level of schooling through high school. Girls from the families with the least means are prioritized, in an area where the average means for a farmer on a daily basis are maybe a buck seventy-five.
In a part of India where the caste system is little changed in millennia, in a place where girls sometimes hold less value to the family than cattle, last year every single girl in the senior class graduated. Most go on to college. It may help that the education, meals, clothing and more aren’t simply free; PPES pays the girls to attend, so they graduate with the means to achieve financial independence, and thus independence in many other forms. I could write far more about the good Sam, his family and the larger PPES family that I am privileged to belong to are doing in this world, and perhaps that will come at a later date.
I journeyed to the school in Anupshahr, India, to develop an electronic medical record for the school’s health clinic for the students. The clinic has since grown to serve the entire surrounding community since public medical care, like public education, is at times a myth in rural India.
I had the bright idea to visit at the end of May, when the average daily high was north of 110 degrees, and the nights weren’t much south of that. Air conditioning was almost non-existent; you just got used to being sweaty, all of the time. Sweaty while writing code at three in the morning.
Whatever discomfort I might be experiencing vanished in an instant in the morning, however, as I walked through the school to the clinic. I found myself surrounded by girls who endured privations at home that I could not remotely conceive of, but they gathered around me like butterflies of radiant joy. Could I take their picture, with me in it? Could they show me their artwork? Could they practice their English? Would I sit with them at lunchtime? There are over fifteen hundred butterflies in Sam’s garden today.
I suppose I have been thinking more about the gift of their companionship in the context of those who would pretend to rule us today. It’s easy to focus on Donald Trump, but there are so many who buttress his venal cruelty who should be every bit as accountable.
Rather than simply finding myself incapacitated by rage, however, I am trying as an imperfect and novice Buddhist to better understand, knowing that hurt is the product of wrong actions, caused by wrong thinking, caused by wrong perceptions, caused by anger, caused by fear.
What America do they see? Today it seems they see an America spasming into rebirth in ways that profoundly threaten their attachments to an imagined past, for attachment is the root of all fear in Buddhism. If only they would visit a Turnaround Arts school.
Turnaround Arts schools are the product of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, developed as part of a 2011 White House initiative spearheaded by Michelle Obama. It honors the 35th President of the United States, who said: “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and the best hope for its future”.
Turnaround Arts provides an integrated arts education at over 70 schools around the country. Like Pardada Pardadi, they focus their attention on districts where funding is desperately needed, in areas facing tremendous challenges. TA provides arts specialists, teachers, instruments, supplies and more. They also provide access to Teaching Artists, well-known creators and performers who work with the teachers and directly with the students.
You can be introduced to many of them by watching the video for “Love Train”, the O’Jays hit song from 1972, produced by the organization Playing for Change. The video features children from many Turnaround Arts schools around the country singing and dancing to the song, joined by thirty-four artists representing music, dance, visual arts and many other forms of expression, including two of the original O’Jays themselves.
Enumerating the blessings bestowed by these four minutes is best left to those who view them. Everyone will find performers and children with whom they identify most. For me this includes Elizabeth Banks, because it is the rare mortal that could ever be more awesome than Elizabeth Banks. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Ballet dancer Misty Copeland. Blues genius Keb’ Mo’. Alfre Woodard and Trombone Shorty. I could be reincarnated a thousand times on my journey to becoming a bodhisattva, and I will still never earn a name as glorious as Trombone Shorty.
I have found new idols there as well. Why had I never heard of Valerie June? Her music is every kind of America, including gospel, soul, Appalachian, folk, blues, country and bluegrass for starters. Lately she’s been integrating Celtic music from across the sea.
Of course, the stars of “Love Train” are not the stars. They are the students.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: “It is a happy talent to know how to play.” You will not find happier talent than in this video. The next generation of Misty Copelands and Paula Abduls, being led by their mentors. Valerie June leading a true Love Train procession. The proudest marching band that ever did march, following Ms. Woodard and Mr. Shorty. You are certain to find your own.
This is the America I see, I trust you see, and I pray our oppressors will see. This is an endowment beyond value. For me, the best expression of this is from an unlikely source, the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, author of Crime and Punishment, among other masterpieces. Said Dostoyevsky: “The soul is healed by being with children.”
For more information about Pardada Pardadi, please visit the “Causes” page on this site at (). PPES’ home page is at https://education4change.org/. The best introduction to their mission is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzcmAxejyvU.
For more information about Turnaround Arts, visit http://turnaroundarts.kennedy-center.org/
There will be a forthcoming post concerning Playing For Change and their music videos, especially “Songs Around The World”. More information is available at https://playingforchange.com/.
