Not a competition.

Once upon a time I had the privilege of belonging to a Choral Society. It sounds flash but it was a real challenge. The music dots on the page never made much sense. But still I persisted and there was no test at the end. It was a different group of people who had no church connection and the conviviality was why I went. Apparently I am much more a tenor voice than a bass, but the bass line is much easier to read.

I well remember one night where it just wasn’t happening. The bass line was not confident and out of tune, while the sopranos were soaring competently with eloquence and flair. So the bass blokes tried harder which made the sopranos turn up their volume and … you know where this is going right?

The conductor who was a woman of infinite patience stopped us all and calmly but obviously with great feeling reminded us “It’s not a competition!” We went silent.

In these quarrelsome days I have frequently brought her words to mind. I reckon that we quickly lost sight of those who are on ventilators in ICU. We forgot the fearful who have recently been diagnosed and those who unheralded, still simply get on and try to care.  With glee, we go pruning tall poppies and relish the convenient quick slick phrase which oversimplifies rather than clarifies the complexities. There is a lot of energy slushing around and it might be helpful if the angst was channelled into working together. Refrigerated morgue trucks and hidden tears are not the currency of political point scoring. They are an opportunity for us to collaborate and cooperate for a  more harmonious tune. Maybe we could offer a calming silence to a world that needs to be reminded that … “It’s not a competition”.