Black and White and Right and Wrong

Last night, I went to the Jack Johnson concert at the Gorge.  I went with my sisters-in-law, sisters-in-spirit.  It was a treat to be together, we don't get to do it often without children.  The day was gorgeous, the night, brilliant.  My spirit felt light, free.  Life felt abundant.  Jack's lyrics (no, we aren't really on a first name basis, but when you watch him sing, you feel like you know him, he just pours out his Self up there on the stage) are all about truth.  He sings about love, what's good in the world, what's wrong with the world, about the world as it could or should be, about the world as it is.  It is a treat to watch people as they are moved by his music.  I watched children sing his lyrics, big smiles on sun tanned faces, sleepy heads resting on their daddy's shoulders, the joy in people's hearts expressed through their bodies as they dance. 
Amidst that beauty, I experienced an interesting contrast.  I think everything he sings about is trying to get us back to where we started, I think he might have a song that says that even.  He sings about getting back to love really, back to a simpler life not so shaded with darkness, not so jaded by the human potential for wrong. Our "neighbors" in the crowd introduced themselves, offered us drinks of their water, their beer, shared our blanket, grooved with us side by side.  At some point in the evening, some people stood in front of us and the "neighbor" grabbed me and was trying to get me to move the people out of the way.  She said to me, "You have to stake out your spot.  Claim your space."  I thought to myself, "Aren't you missing the point here?  He's singing about sharing stuff, about recognizing that we are all in this big world together."  Instead, I just said "It's all good.  No worries."  Inside I wanted to shout at her...don't you get it?  I was drawn out of my little bubble, sort of awed by the fact that not everyone was feeling it, or at least not to the degree I was.
Toward the end of the night, when Jack came back out for an encore, he played solo with his guitar.  He sang a couple of songs to his wife, which it is very evident, he loves dearly.  And then he sang a song dedicated to his little girl.  It's called "My Little Girl".  It's my current soundtrack, I keep playing it over and over.  Here are a bit of the lyrics...
"Hey little girl
black and white and right and wrong
only live inside a song
that i will sing to you....
.....how can i look you in the eyes
and tell you such big lies
the best i can do is try to show you
how to love with no fear"

I danced and smiled with tears in my eyes.  How sweet, this lullaby he wrote for his daughter, and how bitter, that it's the truth.  I kept thinking about my husband and our kids, knowing he too wishes he could shelter our kids from what isn't right with the world, that he could protect them from suffering, from pain, from witnessing violence, from injustice.  I know it is just a part of our human experience, but I've seen too much of it this past week.  Being in my line of work, suicide prevention, you hear amazing stories about people's compassion, their ability to make a difference, and the flip side of that is that you hear awful stories about how horrible we can be to one another, about young kids bullying one another to death, about how alone and isolated people feel.  It is depressing.
I know that in some way I do make a difference,  I make the world a better place.  It doesn't seem like enough though.  What are we doing to raise kinder, more compassionate kids?  I don't mean you and me, I mean WE, like we as a culture.  I don't have the answers, I just know I feel like if I sit silently I am contributing to the problem and not the solution.  I think doing something that feels like enough means getting out of my comfort zone and I don't really know exactly what that looks like.
Last week, one night during our bedtime talks, Ruby told me a story about a boy in her class teasing two other boys, told them they were going to marry each other.  She said "Wouldn't that be weird, then they would have to kiss each other?"  She's 6, what is appropriate?  I'm navigating new territory for me.  We had a conversation about it and about not teasing or making fun of someone for doing something different than we do, or something we think isn't normal, about how that can make someone sad.  I talked to her about speaking up when someone isn't or can't for themselves.  I don't have the answers of how to fix what is broken, I do have hope that if I continue to teach my daughter to love without fear, as Jack describes it, perhaps she can be a seed of change, too and the world will have a little bit more right than wrong.  One can hope....what else is there?