The War

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/hMFHcqJmnq4

'Cause the war isn't out there like before
It isn't out there

But they'll show you the blood on the face of a child
They'll sell you your heartbreak so perfectly styled
And they'll tell you to take your position 
And man the frontier

But take a look at that box on your desk
Take a look at that heart in your chest
Take a look at those thoughts in your head
The war's already here.

~  Thea Gilmore

"The War" hasn't even been released yet in the U.S., but you can find it on YouTube with a very powerful video.  (See link above.)  And the song is breathtaking and heartbreaking.  I first heard it about a week ago on The Loft (SiriusXM) and was nearly moved to tears.

On June 16, 2016, Jo Cox, representing the British Labor Party as a Member of Parliament, was shot and stabbed outside a library.  She was pronounced dead at the scene.  Her murderer was quickly arrested.  Thomas Mair is a pro-apartheid, neo-Nazi white supremacist.  He has since been sentenced to life imprisonment.  In her maiden speech to Parliament a year before her murder, Jo Cox said, "What surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have more in common with each other than the things that divide us."

Thea Gilmore includes a recording of that part of Jo Cox's speech at the end of "The War" video.  It is chilling.

'Cause she took a walk
Past rhetoric and empty talk
Raised up her hand and fought
To bridge a divide

Gilmore tells us the war "isn't out there."  If we are to truly examine our words, our thoughts, our feelings, we come to the terrifying conclusion:  the war is within us.  While I do not think that Gilmore is accusing each of us individually, she is making a bold statement about the human condition.  There is a darkness within.  Of course, it has always been so, but somehow these times (and if I am to be honest, my age) have made it seem darker.

Gilmore ends "The War" with these lines:

You can cut that stem
But wild flowers grow again
All you can do is just tend to them
And know that you tried

Keep trying.