Shared Emotion

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“It was one thing to be kept safe from the harm of violence during the war, but everyone was hungry.  There was little to no food!”- Rachel Burk at Maggie’s Veteran’s Solute Concert

Shared Emotion

The lights went low and Maggie Burke’s young orchestra began to play on stage in soft, beguiling tones.  For the first time in my life I was completely mesmerized by music!  The enchanting tune seemed some how familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it.

Then, after about one minute, its familiarity began to tug ever so gently in my heart and mind.  As it turns out I knew this tune well and have know it my whole life.  This arrangement was different and pleasing.  I have never experienced anything like it before.  Gratitude filled my heart for the performers playing and for my friends Rachel and Tony Burke for inviting my daughter Annie and me.  It was the beginning of an experience I can only describe as shared emotion.

The author of this shared emotion took actual newsreels and letters from World War II and combined them in a multimedia combined live performance to allow the audience to understand that the war was not just a story.  It was the life experience of real people.  But its effect went well beyond performance to me.

During the intermission I talked with Tony and Rachel and made the comment that I was struck with how thin everyone was in the newsreels.  Rachel said, “It was one thing to be kept safe from the harm of violence during the war, but everyone was hungry.  There was little to no food!”  She then explained that her family had been hidden away in the Vatican for their personal safety.  “At the ending of the war they were some of the lucky ones who received an invitation to enter the United States.”

They traveled to the USA on a military vessel and received their first real food in over four years.  It wasn’t really a lot, but it was overwhelming to them as they ate and then lost it all since their bodies were no longer able to tolerate a regular meal!

“They had to eat sparingly the entire voyage to America!”  Rachel explained.

Rachel’s shared story intensified the collective emotion after the intermission.  The audience was still.  The presentation was punctuated with sniffles and applause from the audience. And, at its end, everyone in the auditorium rose as one body in a standing recognition of what was accomplished by those who triumphed in war, spirit and presentation.

“I’m glad it ended!”  Annie said.  “I don’t think I could have endured the intense emotions one more moment!”

It wasn’t that she didn’t love the performance.  She did!  It was just that we had shared the emotion with more than the sublime orchestra.  We had shared the deepest kind of emotion possible, a linking of generations.  We saw much of what they saw.  We felt much of what they felt.  We were overcome by their triumph and our inability to repay the good we have received from their hands.