Spirit in Action
Bridge-builder Reggie Harris (BROADCAST) - Music to Heal and Make Changes
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world alone ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeat. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world alone ♪ We've got a significant measure of insight and delight ahead for today's Spirit in Action. We'll be visiting with a real bridge builder. It's rare to find an activist and change maker who manages to do it without separating the world into good and bad guys. But Reggie Harris is one of them. With his music and with his life, Reggie energizes and motivates people, pulls them together, and launches them on the quest of a better world. For decades, the songs of Kim and Reggie Harris have been giving us hope and spurring change. Reggie joins us from Upstate New York. Well, Reggie, it's great to have you here for Spirit in Action. Thank you, Mark, and it's totally my pleasure to be here. Thanks for asking. You travel so much, you're working so hard, and of course, Kim has got her stuff at Union Theological Seminary. How do you find the time to talk to me? I don't know. That's a great question. I was thinking about this morning as I was sort of juggling things and moving around. I find time to talk to you because, first of all, what you do is very important in the world. I think, you know, sharing the stories and the mission of people who are in the world, trying to be present to the opportunities for change or connecting with people, I think is certainly one of my priorities. Anytime I get to do that and to talk to someone where I can share what I do but also learn something from the process, that's something to make time for. Would you say that you and Kim are doing music because of your activism or your activism came from your music? Is there a chicken in the egg here or a horse and cart? Yeah, I think for both of us, the music came first. Music has been part of my life and not actually part of Kim's life as well. Since childhood, we were raised in musical families. We were raised in churches that really celebrated music as part of both the worship and also statements of life. And then in the schools where we were in childhood, and actually all through school, music was a really big part of the experience. Of course, we come out of the African-American community where music is sort of the center of most things. It was through the music really that I found my way into active. It was the early years when we went out on the road and largely in those years we really were just trying to be entertainers, just trying to make people feel good with our music and writing songs that, you know, talked about the human condition somewhat, but mostly from the standpoint of most artists' love and the way life sort of unfolds. It was in touring and in also seeing and becoming more aware of conditions in the world. And it really comes also out of our childhood of, you know, living in communities that even though I don't think I was paying as much attention to the conditions that people were experiencing, it was present. It was all around me. And those songs, actually as I get older, begin to recycle through and I get to sort of revisit a lot of my childhood and also my teen years of civil rights movement and the spirituals that we sang in church. So definitely we started out just going out and singing songs, hoping to make people happy. And in that journey I began to see ways in which I could both use music and also be open to music of social change and music that sort of talked about in the spirit and talked about, you know, the ways in which we live our lives. Given that you're a year older than me, I can kind of project what might have been current for you as you're growing up. I mean, you see, I was in fourth grade, so maybe you were in fifth grade when Kennedy was shot, Martin Luther King, you know, four years later. Do you think back to those events, what do you remember from them? I think back to them all the time, you know, things that have come present in a variety of ways. I remember that I was in class when Kennedy was built. You know, I can still see the room. I can still see in so many ways the light in the room when one of my fellow students, who was out in the hall doing something on a hall pass, came into the room and said, "President Kennedy's been shot." I can remember that I was standing at the back of the room and my memory of it is that I was, there were about seven rows across in the room and I was standing behind row number four. Got a present enough thought. And the shock that went through me in that moment because he was such a beloved figure in my community. King in the same way, I remember that I was actually at my church. We were having choir rehearsal and we came out of choir rehearsal onto the street. And as we started walking toward home and this car pulled up and said, "Have you heard?" It heard what? But Dr. King did. And in that moment, that memory was just cemented forever. Yeah, I remember that. I remember sitting with my family and watching my family in Washington. No one in my family went to the march, but we were suddenly aware of it. Yeah, there were very present memories of that time, very turbulent time. I remember also that in 1968 in my high school, we had a race ride. I found myself sort of at the center of activity largely because I had so many friends on both sides of the race sign. Friends with a lot of white kids in the school, friends with a lot of black kids in the school. In some ways, I was sandwiched between the two because I was pretty focused on getting to know people and really making connections with people on the basis of who they were. So I had so many friends. Actually, in my senior year, I was voted best personality. So it came to the shock me. But when I asked a friend why I would be elected for personality, he said, "Well, because you know everybody and everybody likes you." It's obvious why that is Reggie. Well, it wasn't obvious to me. The fascinating thing was during the riot, it really put me in the middle of some danger because I had several friends who came up to me. I was helping some of the kids that were a little more out of control and scared to get to a safe place, which was our choir room. A bunch of kids came up to me and they said, "You need to get out of the school." And I said, "Why?" and they said, "Because so many people want to hurt you." I mean, they didn't quite say it like that. But they just said, "You know, many people want to hurt you." And for the first time, I think I was just sort of aware of the gap in terms of race and how emotional the topic it was. And that just by being friends with people, just by being willing to talk to them and see them as equals and as individuals, you were sort of taking a risk once the lines were drawn. Are you saying that you didn't experience a lot of racism pointed at you, pointed at your family as growing up? It's funny, my family I found out years later was the very first black family to move on to the block where I grew up. Didn't know that growing up. By the time I was aware, there was only one white family living on the block. My mother and grandmother and my aunt bought the house in tandem and how we just lived there with my grandmother. And I wasn't aware of the fact that they had to go to a realtor who sort of fronted another family to help them buy the house. Our neighborhood, yeah, there were incidents of racism and certainly there were even more when I went to high school. I went to junior high and high school outside of my neighborhood, so there were a lot of racial incidents. But in those days, my mother raised me with the sense that we were Christians growing up. I was growing up in a Baptist church. And the message for so many Sundays was love. And the message was that the golden rule, treat others as you wish to be treated, you respect everyone. So a lot of the subtleties of what was happening around us in terms of what we were actually experiencing didn't really sort of come due for me until I really until I hit high school. Junior High was sort of a precursor of it. There were fights in the schoolyard between black and white kids and there were some things that were sort of obvious and going on. But when I hit high school, things really sort of hit another gear. And I also played a lot of baseball and football. So I found myself going to other neighborhoods sometimes and in particular there, some of the receptions I got and some of the things that happened. But it tuned me in a little more. And I also became aware of just the general tension between other black and white community leading up to the race by '68. Fascinatingly, however, even though I was aware that there was a lot of stuff going on in the country, I watched the news and I read the papers a lot, I really didn't know just about some of the more violent confrontation. And of course, some of them were going on right in Philadelphia where I was going out, 20, 30 blocks away from my house. But I guess in some ways I was really sheltered growing up in a house that was pretty much focused on religion and pretty much focused on just trying to make it through. And my mother and grandmother just really tried to keep us focused on working hard and treating people well. That was sort of one of their missions, which later in later years has. I think it's done two things. I'm sort of sorry that in those years I wasn't more present to some of the struggle that was going on. But in some ways it gives me a different vantage point of looking at that. And I don't feel that I have also some of the baggage that came with being in the middle of those struggles. Because it very quickly developed that I saw myself as a bridge builder, which I believe I am to this day. Well, it's great that you do that kind of bridge building. The world really needs it. One of the ways that people can do that is through music. And of course, you and Kim do that so wonderfully. Kind of your signature piece is weighed in the water. Would it be okay if we shared that with our listeners? Oh, I'd love that. Let's do it and then talk a little bit about it and some more of your music as we go on. I'm talking with Reggie Harris. He and his wife Kim are forming here weighed in the water. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] That was "Wade in the Water" by Reggie Harris and Kim doing it here. Of course, that's not one you wrote, but you write a lot of your own music, don't you, Reggie? I do. It's one of the great joys of my life to write songs, but yeah, that is a spiritual. From the days of the Underground Railroad, it's a song that I sang growing up in my church. It's always been a song I've been aware of, but over the course of our performing life. It's sort of taken a more prominent position. And why is that? What's special about this one for you specifically? I think that song just sort of embodies so much of what our struggle is as human beings, but for an African-American just thinking about how that song and particularly, but also how the spirituals really gave people such hope and such a sense of who they were. That song for me just kind of signals that when things are at their worst, there is still hope, but you have to be active about it. The verses, you know, who are those children dressed in red must be the ones that Moses led, you know, Moses being a code name for Harriet Tubman, who was leading people to freedom during the Underground Railroad. So the song for us, I think, is sort of a, I don't know, it's almost a rededication of ourselves. There are very few performances that Kim and I do where that song doesn't show up. Well, could you give us an example of some other, the kind of music that you do and perhaps stuff, of course, that you wrote? Because I think that's how you put your experience out there for the world to see. Well, you know, I'm sort of noticing that when I was growing up, my mother made sure we were in church as much as possible. So a lot of the biblical imagery and a lot of those themes were sort of locked in at a very early age. Subsequently, you know, I guess as we do when we're growing as teenagers, you start to try to get away from those things that you sort of grew up having, you feel, pushed down your throat. So as the years went on, I got more interested in music that wasn't so church-based, it wasn't really faith-based, didn't have that same kind of imagery. And I find it very interesting that as I developed as a songwriter, in particular, as I entered my 30s and 40s, the imagery started to sneak back into my writing. Actually, it started to introduce itself, I think, might be more accurate. So that's where a song like Rock of Ages comes in. You know, we were flying over St. Louis years ago, and it was at a time when the Mississippi River was flooding. It was a particularly turbulent time for us. We've been participating in some activities and some workshops to help people just dealing with racism and actually talking a lot about the Civil Rights Movement. And as we flew in to St. Louis for a conference, I looked down and the Mississippi had just overflowed its banks and everywhere there was just water. A very interesting image considering that our area in just a few weeks ago was flooded in the same way with Hurricane Irene. I looked at that image as the plane passed over and just seeing the utter despair of people's homes, people's dreams, people's lives just floating down toward the sea. And this song started to resonate in my head. This first verse came to me because a storm on the horizon as water where we thought it could not be. And all of a sudden, I was often writing. The song "Rock of Ages" came out of that experience. So in many ways, it was very specific. It widened out actually in the second verse to talk about the other things that flood our lives, the other emotions, the other things that make us feel disenfranchised. And then the song sort of continues with just the onslaught of things that daily make us rack our brains and lose hope, lose faith. Well, that song has been reborn in so many different ways over the course of years. I was singing it on Sunday for the group that we were performing for. And it was just so present to our reality of having lived through Hurricane Irene and had our town and so many near us almost wiped off the earth. A song about distress and also about hope. It is "Rock of Ages" by Kim and Reggie Harris. [Music] It has a storm on the horizon as water where we thought it could not be. Every city, every town has watched that wall come down as the river takes our dreams out to the sea. One by one, we lose conviction. Devastation reads confusion in the soul, smashed and battered beaten down. We've been pushed to higher ground by a force that we once thought we could control. "Rock of Ages" clapped for me, let me hide myself in need. Give me a chance from the stars of this troubled land. [Music] There's a war on the horizon and there's danger where we thought it could not be. Waves of prejudice and fear have made their presence clear through hateful deeds that burn our hearts with misery. One by one, we lose conviction as we struggle through our anger to hold on. Nature found in freedom's pain, revolution got in pain. We are skeletons of big and we are strong. "Rock of Ages" clapped for me, let me hide myself in need. If we share a shelter from the stars of this troubled land. [Music] We suffer through the arrogance, suffer through the hate, suffer through indignities that ignorance creates, suffer war and violence. From those who seek to gain, we suffer from injustice done in someone's holy name. We suffer lies that we've been told, the subtle acts of mind control, the logic that corrupts us as we slowly lose our way. We give our blood, we make a stand, and ask that current sweeps the land. The voices of the others come, you've got to save me to that rock of ages. Now we hope to be within that shelter from the stars of this troubled land. "Rock of Ages" clapped for me, let me hide myself in need. Give me shelter from the stars of this troubled land. "Rock of Ages" clapped for me, let me hide myself in need. "Rock of Ages" clapped for me, let me hide myself in need. "Rock of Ages" clapped for me, let me hide myself in need. "Rock of Ages" clapped for me, let me hide myself in need. "Rock of Ages" clapped for me, let me hide myself. "Rock of Ages" clapped for me, let me hide myself in need. There's a line where you say "Push to higher ground by a force we once thought we could control." Where is religion or spirituality in that? I have a sense of the divine in there, but I'm not sure if you name it. I'm not sure that I name it either, but I know that for me, my path on spirituality has been a very challenging one. I grew up, as I mentioned earlier, in a fundamental Baptist home, where for the first part of my life, religion and spirituality were really presented as things that you could understand that they were ready answers, that God was a God who had all the answers and all you had to do was ask. And if you didn't get an answer, then there was some reason God was holding out on. But that was good too, which caused me just a lot of feelings of conflict. And eventually when I reached my teen years, really some feelings of rejection. I was on a track actually to become either a minister or a missionary. I was sort of being groomed in my church to that purpose. So when I went away to college my first year, I actually went to a Bible college to sort of prepare myself for the ministry. And it was probably one of the most difficult and confusing years of my life. I was at odds with myself and at odds with the world and at odds with so much of what I had been taught. It would take really, really wonderful people and some marvelous experiences to help me to heal from that. And I'm not saying that I didn't appreciate growing up in the church where I grew up because there was a richness of faith and a richness of the people. But not being able to talk with people and challenge those subjects and the issues that I needed to challenge was very damaging. So in my adult years it's been an experience of realizing that we don't have ready answers. And that sitting in the complexity of our passion for God, for the universe, or a spiritual expression is really the secret of not only making progress, but for I think it's the secret to being of service to the world. I've become much more in touch with the stance of the broken healer. I also with the sense that even when you are tired and I think that is what Rock of Ages for me connects. It's that you have been dealing with and you have been experiencing and you have been beset by all of these external and internal forces. Things that you might think that you have under control or under your control. And the moments when you begin to understand that you don't, the crisis of faith comes. The song Rock of Ages, my experience of writing that was of saying I'm overwhelmed. I have not seen fruits of what I feel are my labors coming to fruition. And yet even in that I know that there's good here. Though I need to find a safe place, maybe a refuge for just a while, so I can come at it again. You told me you also wanted to include the song Four Walls earlier. I have some sense of that same kind of hope distress going on in that song. Where does it come from? That comes from my marriage. Kim and I will be married 35 years in November. And I grew up in a household. My parents were divorced. I was 13 months old. There weren't a lot of marriages around me that were really great role models for how to be in a relationship that I dreamed about. Being with someone with whom you could develop trust and safety and Kim and I certainly over the course of years have done that. But it's been hard. We've had missteps. We've gone off the rails. So the song Four Walls really I wrote two years after our 20th anniversary or 25th actually. I tried to write a song for a 25th anniversary. I sat down and I said I'm going to write a song for the 25th anniversary. And I came up with a couple of songs and they were just dreadful. But the idea was there and after a while I began to think about what the real magic of our being together is. That magic is that we have discovered that we are two different people who have decided to commit to each other. And we've decided to commit to each other physically and in faith and in the struggle in our mission as musicians. And that song began to unfold. It came to me, you know, the image of a house. You know, in that you're building a house and slowly room by room you're just sort of assembling this house. One thing that I think about listening to this about your marriage and about, well, you know, you're 13 months old when your parents get divorced and so on. My mom actually died when I was nine. My dad remarried a year later. So even though I lost my mom, I grew up in a two-parent household basically all the time. And that has its pluses and sometimes it's minuses too. But with divorce increasing so much in the world and more children out of wedlock, is there a message for people in four walls for all those communities who are dealing with one parent households? Well, I think there is. You know, I mean the primary message of the song is that you have to go step by step. But, you know, I was in a home and I had my mom and we also lived with my grandmother. There was never any time in my house when I did not know that I was loved. My mom sort of also tried as best she could to listen to me, but she also had the good sense to seek out the council and the opportunity for me to be with men through my church or through school. So I think, you know, even though it was very difficult in many ways just having her as my principal parent and in many ways not having a male presence in the house, she knew that it was important and tried whenever possible to get me into situations where I could have that experience. I know also that growing up in that household did sensitize me in a different way certainly to the plight of women and things that they endure in our world. So I would say by way of the song, it points out I think that the most important ingredient in any home is love and patience. The ability to have a perspective on the long term, but really to pay attention to the everyday. If you're paying attention moment by moment, you find ways or ways find you that will enable you to get to the next day, the next week. That certainly has been true of my relationship with Kim as we've gone through any number of really hard times. You have to sort of slow down your life process in a way and just concentrate on what's in front of you and concentrate on that together. Trying to be as honest as you can in the moment as to, you know, what it is you need. I've had a really remarkable partner who has had my back for those 35 plus years. What the world needs now is love, sweet love and patience and some of that is what makes it possible for us to have four walls around us. The song is Four Walls by Kim and Reggie Harris. Hour by hour. Day after day you and I. In a dance of love, this fluid passion played. On the waves of our yearning, we've traveled so far to this place. In a race against the tide, building slowly between us, these fragile dream filled walls have grown strong. They protect us from the bitter winter squalls. A thousand moments of mercy have covered our hearts and our dreams. Now we have ourselves a hope. When the ill winds blow, threatening all we know, we hold each other and we sing. If we take just one step, then take just one breath. We can make the journey easier. We can face whatever's left. If we take just one step, we'll endure. We'll prosper, we'll survive. Doing all we can to keep our love alive. Now this love we've been sharing started in a sentence small, like a child. It's grown older now. It's had its share of thoughts through the maze of confusion. Through laughter, through tears, we've been there, searching side by side. All the storms we've met, and the ones till yet unborn, they'll never bring us down. If we take just one step, then take just one breath. We can make the journey easier. We can face whatever's left. If we take just one step, we'll endure. We'll prosper, we'll survive. Doing all we can to keep our love alive. All the storms we've met, and the ones till yet unborn. They'll never bring us down. If we take just one step, then take just one breath. We can make this journey easier. We can face whatever's left. If we take just one step, then we'll endure. We'll prosper, we'll survive. Doing all we can to keep our love alive. Today's Spirit and Action guest is Reggie Harris. That was his song "Four Walls" after their 25th anniversary. They've kept on going with those years together, building up what our society needs a lot of. Of course, we needed in marriages, Reggie, but we also needed in community. We need it nationally. I think on a national level, we're seeing a real shortage in the connection bank. There's been mountains and walls put between us. Yeah, I would agree. It's a very tough time. It's one that for me is very painful to watch, because I think we've been in so many ways led astray. By people who have other interests in mind, they have other agendas. As you look around, you see the lives that people are living particularly, and this movement, the 99 percent, and Occupy Wall Street and all of these various movements. It's very interesting to me to see that rising. I'm happy to see it largely because most of the people that I know, and most of the families that I see, and in our travels, most of the people that we meet, have lives that are really at odds with the agenda, certainly that Congress and many of the corporations are trying to sell us as the life we should be leading. It's one of the things that speaks very vibrantly to us, and we feel very passionately about doing this in our music, addressing the issue of community. And I know a lot of people often think about community as being a place where you live, where everybody gets along. But that really isn't the meaning of community. Certainly is something that people form and work on. I think that's one of the things that we're missing in our present society, is that whole sense of our community being both nurturing, but also built with diversity. Diversity of thought, diversity of race and religion, and we put a lot of energy into trying to provide songs and stories that talk about that, sort of reintroduce the idea for people that that is one of the things that makes us all whole. And is that kind of the thought behind in the shelter, or is that about personal relationship, your song in the shelter? Are you talking about community as well as the individual? Actually, I'm talking about community almost entirely in this song. You know, obviously the personal comes into it because we have to always work for a personal sense. We are who we are, and we are in our own personal locations in our minds and our bodies. But that song actually came about the very interesting way. I got a brochure in the mail from the Omega Institute years ago, and the brochure was talking about a conference that they had coming. It was called in the shelter of each other. There was this really great artwork on the cover that really sort of struck me. I kept it, and I put it in my travel bag, and I just looked at that painting. Under it, it said, "In the shelter of each other, the people live," which I believe was attributed to a Gaelic source. And that just sort of resonated with me, and the conference that they were giving was on exactly that. The fact that our world had become so focused on the individual, and that we needed to widen our focus again and see how we all fit in the whole. So I was thinking about that as I looked at the brochure, I thought, "Well, you know, that would be a nice song." So I started working on an idea with that. So I was intrigued by the conference. I didn't know if I could go, but I thought, "Well, I should just write a song anyway, because I really love that artwork, and I really love the phrase." Literally, two weeks after I started working, I think I had a verse, and I had the chorus, and I was working on the second verse. In the phone ring, and it was one of the leaders of the conference. She called up, as a matter of fact, it was Elizabeth Lesser, one of the founders of Omega, and she said, "Regine, we're doing this conference, and we have a little bit of time. I was wondering if you might think about writing a song for us." [laughter] I said, "Really?" And she said, "Yeah, I think it would be really great to have a song, and I'd also like to have you come and put a work with us on some of the music and introducing ideas about community singing." And I thought, "Well, this is great." I said, "Well, I'll give you some thoughts, because I wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish before." So she called back and said, "How you doing?" I said, "Well, actually, I am working on a song, and I think it'll be ready in time. I'd love to come and do music. I'd love to come and interact." And so that's what I did. I went and I was a musical animator, singing songs, and getting people to sing. But meanwhile, the conference was three days long. The first night I went, the song wasn't finished. I sat up until three in the morning, and I finished the last verse, and I took it down that next morning, and I had the opportunity to sing that song. We got 900 people singing the chorus just before Maya Angelou gave the most remarkable speech ever. Well, what a gift in all directions, I'm sure. It was incredible. The song is "In the Shelter" by Kim and Reggie Harris. ♪ In the shelter of each other ♪ ♪ In the shelter of our lives ♪ ♪ We are open ♪ ♪ We are dreaming ♪ ♪ We are open ♪ ♪ We are wise ♪ ♪ In the shelter of each other ♪ ♪ In the shelter of our lives ♪ ♪ In the shelter of our lives ♪ ♪ In the shelter of our lives ♪ ♪ We are open ♪ ♪ In the tree of each other ♪ ♪ In the shelter of our lives ♪ ♪ In the shelter of our lives ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Many times the weight of the world crashes in ♪ ♪ We feel angry and afraid ♪ ♪ We start to lose our sense of hope ♪ ♪ Our sense of convection ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Passulation we have learned ♪ We'll not bring much in return If we truly cannot learn to live as one Right in the shelter of each other Right in the shelter of our lives We are open, we are dreaming, yes we are hopeful, and we are wise. You know that many times the pain of the world crashes in. We feel broken and betrayed, we start to lose our sense of joy, our sense of connection. And though our history remains, it's our actions we must change. If we hope to heal our planet, we must stand Right in the shelter of each other Right in the shelter of our lives We are open, we are dreaming, yes we are hopeful, and we are wise. We are open, we are wise. Right in the shelter of each other Right in the shelter of our lives We are open, we are dreaming, yes we are hopeful, and we are wise. We are open, we are dreaming, yes we are hopeful, and we are wise. We are wise. We are wise. We are wise. We are wise. Kim and Reggie Harris in the shelter, you are listening to Spirit in Action. Our website is northernspiritradio.org You will find a link to Kim and Reggie. Their website is Kim and Reggie.com You also find our archives of the past six years. You can listen to all of those episodes and you can find links to our guests. So many good people doing so much good work and a lot of good music on the website as well. You connect with great people and people like Reggie Harris and Reggie you described yourself as a bridge maker. That's I think continued in many ways in your life. Certainly race is one area where it happens. I was kind of surprised when you talked earlier about the Occupy Wall Street movement. I think you continued your tradition of bridge making. You didn't just say these are the good guys and those are the bad guys. That isn't a tendency that comes to you naturally to point and say look at those bad guys and we're the good guys. I don't really think about good guys and bad guys so much. I know that that gets set up in the world a lot. I have the opportunity and have had the opportunity over the course of years. I'm 50 years old and I've been really blessed to travel all around the world. And for the most part, most people that you meet have so much good in them. I know that there are bad guys. And some of that of course may be even mental illness. I mean people in whatever way unable to the function. But even I go into prisons and I meet people there who most people would consider the drugs of the earth or evil. And I sit and have conversations with them and you find most often that there is some sense of compassion and perhaps that they made a bad decision or that a series of bad decisions or the life situation that they came out of. I mean for what I do in the world and for who I am in the world, I don't really see a lot of benefit to labeling people good or bad or even for that matter corporations or any of that. There are certainly institutions and there are people who are doing things that are very hurtful and in many cases it's to a great extent. But I am most interested in finding ways to connect people and to connect myself to people who are looking for opportunities to do good and to be positive. Kim came home from her studies the one year and one of the phrases and one of the terms that they were using in a lot of discussions were enlightened self-interest. And I love that term. Because I think that sometimes it's hard for people to see how to do good in the world for whatever reason. And that if you can tie them to something that helps them to see that, then they will do as much as they possibly can or more. And so that is I think where I see myself, I think Kim and I see ourselves as sort of ambassadors of the positive and ambassadors of good who looking at history and being an interaction and mostly through song can help people to see themselves in a role. You know we talk a lot about the Underground Railroad. You know most people in America did not participate in the Underground Railroad. They did not work hard about slavery. In some cases they did not work at all. But that you know there are all kinds of stories of people either coming in contact with the Underground Railroad or coming in contact with one individual or of having in some way some connection to an opportunity to help someone with freedom who suddenly came alive. And history is filled with those stories. In the Civil Rights Movement it's the same thing. I just saw a segment on Oprah a few months ago where a man who beat one of the Freedom Riders in 1961, the matter of fact the Freedom Rider he beat was Congressman John Lewis. And he passionately believed that blacks were not human and that he needed to stop them doing what they were doing and trying to mix into society. And the segment on Oprah was just so amazing that the story is that when he got off and he beat John Lewis and at some point the policeman had the two of them together and he asked John Lewis if he wanted to press charges. And he said no I don't want to press charges against the man I'm just here for love. Well that very simple thing that most people I think would find to be an incredibly unusual thing to say stayed in that man's mind for years. And after a period of time he was not able to live with himself or what he had done. And so the story is that he went to Washington and he's older now he was retired and he found John Lewis's office and he went there specifically to apologize for what he had done. Those are the kinds of stories that I know are possible. So when I connect with people I'm not thinking Republican or Democrat. I'm not thinking corporate or independent I'm not thinking black white. I'm thinking toss and totally I'm thinking opportunity. I'm thinking that in the right moment in the right setting with the right incentives with the right amount of enlightened self-interest perhaps we can find our way through a window of the heart. We sit alone together each from a different world. Suspicious of each other position flags are unfair. So much light's been in between us, lines of the lecture and down. Standing in rooms of pain and mistrust, searching for common ground. So we stumble through our points of view, logic falls apart. In that moment of confusion we see a place to start. Through the windows of the heart. We sit in silence and wonder, where do we go from? Where do we go? Frustration dragging us under, no resolution clear. We feel the anger, this desperation to turn this world around. Due to time constraints I'm going to pull a John Stewart here. The rest of this interview with Reggie Harris is up on the webs at northernspiritradio.org. If you don't go and listen to it, you'll miss some of the best parts including Reggie's storytelling, wrestling with near death in 2008. The rest of his song "Window of the Heart" and another "All My Relations". Look for the excerpt of the last portion of the interview or listen to the full interview both at northernspiritradio.org. And we'll see you next week for "Spirit in Action". The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World", performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is "Spirit in Action". With every voice, with every song, we will move this world alone. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world alone and our lives will feel the echo of our healing. You