Early afternoon on a beautiful fall day in New York City.  I’m getting ready to do the now  familiar walk from the Met to our hotel on our final day.  I love Lincoln Center during the day.  Parents walking their kids to school, students with instruments walking over to Julliard, dancers going to class, people hanging out at the fountain or under the trees eating lunch or drinking their coffee.  So as we walked past the building which houses the New York City Ballet, I noticed two policemen with automatic weapons, wearing kevlar vests watching the area.  Now, it’s not like I’ve never seen police in New York before.  They’re everywhere.  But there was just something wrong seeing them in front of the ballet.

Lincoln center is a mecca for beautiful music and dance.  With the opera, symphony and the ballet all together, at night it is a spectacle to see.  Men and women dressed to the nines side by side with students in their more casual attire entering the beautifully lit buildings to soak up the culture.  At capacity, you could expect 8,000-9,000 people attending nightly, and this doesn’t include employees, pedestrian traffic, etc.  So yes, it could be a target I suppose.  And alongside all of this beauty is the ugliness of guns, carried by men and women in order to protect those who seek the beauty.  Ironic, isn’t it?

Since getting back, a couple of people have asked me if anyone at our conference expressed concern in terms of safety after the Las Vegas shooting.  And you know, unless it was in some small side conversations, I did not hear any.  All I saw and heard were a very diverse group of people coming together, focused on learning about opera and how to get this wonderful art form to their students.  A wonderful microcosm of how life should and could be.

Within this diverse group are people from all areas of the country.  Young and old, male and female, gay and straight, democrats, republicans and independents, different religions, cultures, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds.  Some musicians, some not.  Teachers and administrators.  Those with a lifetime of experience with the genre, some with none. Based on what we see on the news everyday, there should have been no way we would have gotten along, right?  And yet, everyone worked together, helping each other work outside their comfort zones,  because for three days we all had the same focus and the same goal.  Our goal was to learn how to bring beautiful music to ALL children through the study of opera.

There was collaboration, cooperation, creativity, and communication through civil discussions.  All the things that adults should be able to do.  And yet, the guns remind us that some people have difficulty doing these things.  Those people allow the fear of diversity to get in the way of their understanding of that diversity.  And so they just fight it.  It’s so much easier to get angry than it is talking to and getting to know people I suppose.  When we had a problem with something, we spoke honestly to one another about it.  We had members of our group who shared personal aspects of their lives and teaching, sharing tears and laughter along the way.

I’m not sure why recognizing diversity is such a big deal anyway.  After all, we were all created to be unique creatures, none of us the same.  Sure we may have some similarities, some similar likes and dislikes, backgrounds and philosophies, but when it comes right down to it, we’re ALL diverse.  Would we really want it any other way?  How boring would THAT be?  Fear would prefer it be boring.  Bravery is when we are open to getting to know people who, let’s face it, are all going to be different from us, again because we are all unique.

So, while I am grateful for these men and women who, on a daily basis, are willing to give up their lives to keep those of us seeking beauty safe, it makes me sad that we have to be reminded of the fear and ugliness in the world in this way.  I’m grateful that I can teach the beauty of the arts to my students and show them that not everything in the world is scary and ugly.  And I’m grateful for the examples my colleagues demonstrated this past week, sharing themselves and accepting me for who I am.