THINK ABOUT THINKING ABOUT THESE THOUGHTS

THINK ON THESE THINGS
 
A great way to discover and re-discover ideas and artifacts is to catalog them.
 
At the shop, I’m placing an enormous amount of sheet music online, to go
with the other 47,000 items already listed. This way, if you’re looking for
lyrics to a song that keeps running amuck in your head, you can go to Reed
Books’ website and enter the title. If it pops up, that means I have it in the
Shop and can pull it from the archives for you to peruse and purchase.
 
Today’s trove of songs produces a little tune I’d almost forgotten, from the
musical SOUTH PACIFIC.
 
It’s a blatant and poignant diatribe against bigotry, intolerance, racism and ignorance.
 
Well worth reading:
 
You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear.
You’ve got to be taught from year to year.
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear.
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
 
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
 
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
 
–Oscar Hammerstein II & Richard Rodgers
 
You can’t get much more specific and un-subtle than this,
and it’s such a nice surprise in the middle of an otherwise
sentimental musical. It reminds me of my favorite Shel
Silverstein poem about the same subject. Read on:
 
NO DIFFERENCE
 
Small as a peanut,
Big as a giant,
We’re all the same size
When we turn off the light.
 
Rich as a sultan,
Poor as a mite,
We’re all worth the same
When we turn off the light.
 
Red, black or orange,
Yellow or white,
We all look the same
When we turn off the light.
 
So maybe the way
To  make everything right
Is for God to just reach out
And turn off the light!
 
–Shel Silverstein
 
End of today’s morality thoughts.
 
It’s good to contemplate these things once in a
while…even better to think about them every day…
even best to practice them
© 2010 A.D. by Jim Reed

www.jimreedbooks.com

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