Have You Seen What We've Seen?
A travel memoir of sorts.
Blessings to All Y’all People of Conscience,
Over the last month we’ve been in Chicago and Santa Cruz. We’ve reconnected with old friends and made new ones. We’ve traveled by plane, train, and minivan. We’ve traveled on winding mountain roads in the predawn darkness and cheered for the Cubs at Wrigley field. We’ve stood in redwood forests, eaten Al’s Italian Beef Sandwiches and homemade vegan Nigerian food. We’ve performed in jazz clubs and college recital halls, farmers markets and synagogues. We share all this to make the point: we’ve been out and about. And you know what? In all our travels and adventures we haven’t met a single unkind person. Think about that. Thousands of people. From the strangers sitting next to us at Wrigley to the rabbis and cantors that welcomed us into their communities to the people we passed on the trail in the redwood forest to the college students who ran sound for us at Cabrillo College. From selichot at Makom Solel Lakeside in Highland Park, IL to Sukkot at Temple Beth El in Aptos, CA not a single unkind person.
We state emphatically that we have not, in our varied exploits, met any unkind people. On the contrary, we have met incredibly kind people. We have met good people, gracious people, generous people, thoughtful people, conscientious people. We’ve met hopeful people, concerned people, curious people, worldly people, humble people, courageous people, visionary people, plainspoken people. We’ve met artists, scientists, clergy people, business people, teachers, children, senior citizens. We’ve met people of every gender, sexual orientation, and legal status. We’ve met people of all different backgrounds, races, ethnicities, socioeconomic status. People with diverse life experiences, diverse professional lives, diverse political views, and so much more.
While the two of us are generally “cup half full” people (how can you not be when you get to share your music and message with the world) we don’t think that our rosy outlook on life has distorted our vision leading us to see only kind people in a world full of sociopaths, monsters, and selfish tyrants. On the contrary, we think we’re seeing things pretty clearly. And what we’re seeing is light. Light, goodness, love, and kindness. The other thing we’ve seen is fear.
The fear that we’ve encountered isn’t the kind of fear that is stoked by the forces that actively seek to instill fear, that profit from doing so, and that seek to divide rather than unite, paralyze rather than mobilize. The fear that we’ve encountered is a different kind of fear. It’s a fear born of deep concern. It’s a fear that we’re losing our connections to one another, to our communities, to our values, to better angels. It’s a fear that we’ve lost our sense of common purpose and shared fate and forgotten how to look one another in the eye. It’s a fear that we might one day no longer be able to see the goodness in our neighbor, our community member, our fellow citizen. This fear born of concern is a fear that deserves to be honored. But the best way to honor it is to understand and ultimately overcome it. There’s too much at stake to let our fear extinguish our light. There’s too much goodness to allow despair to shackle our spirits. And so… To This Darkness We Will Sing…
Action Items
Join us at Temple Emanu-El in Atlanta on November 8th for Family Services and Adult Services.
Join us at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, MA the weekend of 1/10/25.
Check out the amazing band Hotel Fiction. One of the band’s amazing founding members is a former student of Micah’s from The Davis Academy. They happened to be performing in Santa Cruz while we were there and Micah got to see them perform and was COMPLETELY BLOWN AWAY.
Lastly, please support us on social media if you don’t mind doing so!
FB-- @WeAreLapidusAndMyles and IG: Lapidus&Myles. YouTube @lapidusmyles
Till We Meet Again,
Melvin and Micah