I LOVE BARBRA

Barbra Streisand that is....what a tremendous singer. She truly puts her whole heart and soul into her songs be they show tunes, love songs, or laments. I've been listening to several of her CD's as I quilt this morning and one intro she gave before a song made me stop and just listen. In fact, I had not only to stop my quilting to start the track over and listen, but to come here to write. I couldn't quilt through tears anyway so needed to take a break.

The CD is Streisand:Live in Concert 2006. the song and dialogue are tracks 12 and 13. Leonard Bernstein's Somewhere. She introduced the song reminding the audience that it is a song from West Side Story which was set in the 1950's but is based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Hate she stated unfortunately transcends time. She also stated though that "Hate accomplishes nothing". That she hoped that she would live to see a world where we could learn to live together. Then just before singing she quoted Archbishop Desmond Tutu. "God created us different to know our need for one another." That got me....then listening to the song I just fell apart.

Why can't we humans just get along???? Why can't we hear and embrace the truth in Desmond Tutu's words? They resonate on so many different levels. Are we so blinded to our own needs that we have forgotten others and their needs. That we have forgotten the art of give and take; forgotten how to work together, how at times to even celebrate our differences seeing that rather than dividing us or pitting us against each other they provide us the opportunity to become whole.

No one person, one culture, one religion or one anything has all the answers. We must learn to work together. We must learn to fill in our weaknesses with another's strengths. This I think is what God wants for his creation! Now for the song:

Somewhere
There's a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us
Somewhere.

There's a time for us,
Some day a time for us,
Time together with time spare,
Time to learn, time to care,
Some day!

Somewhere.
We'll find a new way of living,
We'll find a way of forgiving
Somewhere . . .

There's a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we're halfway there.
Hold my hand and I'll take you there
Somehow,
Some day,
Somewhere!