Twenty-four years ago, on the first Saturday in October, I along with six friends and 1 million plus men stood in the gap of the Washington D.C. Mall. We sang. We prayed. We cried, celebrated as one. I have never experienced anything of this magnitude, before or since.
I recall the conversation between Larry, Edwin, and myself as we travelled from New Jersey to the event. We were trying to imagine what could happen when a hundred thousand men came together.
We had no idea.
Lessons born on that day have stayed with me, at times as whispers, and on other occasions as loud and overwhelming as they were on that October day.
Harmony is powerful. As obvious as the scientific principle is when harmonic vibrations destroy a bridge during a storm (mandatory watching for every Engineering student), few take the concept and extend it to community. I discovered harmony at scale on the Washington Mall. It was big! As far as I could see, men numbering in the hundreds of thousands were singularly focused on taking a stand for God. Young, old, black, white, rich, and poor. The binding link between us was and is a belief in a Supreme Being.
Harmony cannot sit still. As the opening cords resounded across the mall, more than a million voices lifted themselves up in a shared expression of awe, faith, and hope. I understood the Psalm, “Sing to God a thanksgiving hymn, play music on your instruments to God,” (Psalm 147.7) with every fiber of my being. As I write, listening to the sounds of that day, my being longs to sway with others, moving together in hope and faith.
Harmony can be threatening to those who are not in the experience. I went back to my community with stories and experiences to share, assuming I would be welcomed. When the opposition emerged, it was hard to understand why and yet it is the world in which we live.
I stand in the gap, praying the harmony experienced then always live on in us.
