Every once in a while, Jon and I take a pause and reflect on what we hope to accomplish with Sounds Good and Good Memories—a pause to step back and look at the big picture, that’s far bigger than fun and great singing.

Last week was one of those times. Last Thursday, on the 24^th anniversary of 9/11, I gave a presentation at Fourth Presbyterian Church’s Center for Life and Learning on the topic of collective grief. That term refers to the phenomenon of an entire community or nation grieving—and it differs from the kind of grief process that occurs when we have a personal loss. I talked about the kinds of experiences that result in collective grief—national traumas like 9/11, tragedies like the assassination of JFK, natural disasters like hurricanes or wildfires—and I reminded the group of all the unacknowledged losses of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ah, the pandemic! Jon and I often talk about what it was like to be running the Sounds Good Choir organization during the pandemic; our memories include the rapid pivot to online programming and the creation of coffee chats and sing-alongs. But we don’t reflect as often on what it was like, emotionally and socially—for all of us. The isolation, the fear, how crummy it was to sing, as one singer described it, “out of tune, all alone in my living room.”

And how joyful it was to be reunited, in early 2022, when we could once again sing together. How wonderful it was to sing side by side, to hear all the other voices, to pull down our masks for a second and smile at each other, to laugh and hug and “make a joyful noise” in the most “Psalm 100” way! 

How easy it is to forget the power of all of us, together.

That’s what Jon and I thought about when we paused, thought about what’s really important, and looked ahead to the future of Sounds Good—the certainty that we’re all better, together.

We are in a time of great division, a time when the emphasis is on where we differ rather than on what we have in common, what we share. Regardless of where we are on the political spectrum, the focus is on the enormous gap between us rather than how to build a bridge. And I’m certain that the way out of the anxiety, sadness, anger, and hopelessness that we all feel—the collective grief we’re all experiencing—is to build that bridge.

Our Sounds Good organization is an example of the bridge. We gather together, irrespective of who we voted for or who’s to blame for the turmoil we’re living in, and we sing. We welcome everyone…. everyone! We stand side by side, we support each other and make each other better, and we know that the whole is so much richer than the individual parts.

And as the research shows, our heart rates sync up and our hearts are literally beat together!

That’s how we will heal as people, and how we will heal as a nation.

I’m not implying that all of the ills of the world will be fixed by singing in a choir. But I do know that in addition to the physical benefits and social benefits of singing together, if we pay attention to what happens in our hearts, and take that out into the world, some great stuff will happen.

As Desmond Tutu said, “Do your little bit of good where you are; it is those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”