LANDFILL HARMONIC. I’m skeptical, yet hopeful. Is it a first?

J.M. alerted me to the this phenomenon. I like it, a lot, but…

If you dig deep enough, you’ll see things that raise red flags, but this bit is good.

I’m not convinced that those on the dump aren’t being taken for a ride on a political journey that is not their own, like so many unknowing puppets, but this bit is good, kind of…

I hope that all proceeds go to the city on the dump so that they can get the food and clean water and medicine and education that they need, instead of going to the pet projects of backers somewhere else.

I hope that “women’s empowerment” and “gender equality” that you’ll find if you dig for it with the advertised backers of this project, simply refer to voting rights and such things, not to abortion, abortifacients and gay marriage. I hope that these poor people are not brainwashed with the culture of death, which would be the ultimate cynicism of the part of those promoting the project. I don’t know if that’s what this is all about. If you know better, let me know. I remain skeptical. But hopeful. And yet…

One girl in the trailer says that her life would be worthless without music. Let those words hang in the air a bit and let yourself think about them. What if that music is taken away? What then? Being overwhelmed with different circumstances and sensory experience isn’t the be all and end all of our lives. Eventually we come to know this. Eventually we come to know that the Creator of mankind, the Creator of the soul which has musical capacity, is the One who provides that our lives are of worth because of the music He makes of our lives. To feel worthless if we don’t have something is a recipe for despair that works on someone even while they are in the midst of prosperity. They are being set up for a fall into a darkness much worse than they ever knew before unless they come to know a deeper meaning of life.

The local instigator in all this says correctly that “people realize that we shouldn’t throw trash away carelessly; well, we shouldn’t throw people away either.” I love that… Yet…

It’s just that I’ve seen exactly this kind of thing so many times in so many like places, and such things in my experience, to date, have never been done just for the sake of the good of those involved, ever. But maybe this is a first. Let me know.

I am reminded of Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s statement about our throwing a note of discord into the universe with original sin, but that our Lord took that note and made it the first note of a symphony that would resonate with redemption and salvation to the ends of that universe, to every heart and soul from the first man to the last. O.K. Let’s pray that it be so with this Landfill Harmonic, that symphony played with the sour note of people living on a landfill will be a glorious melody played to the Lord by the Lord Himself.

Confession: It’s true that I drove right by the dump depicted, or rather was driven by this dump while I was being taken to a certain location across the street from the presidential palace of the president of this country back in the day. My mission there only involved some hours, and there was no way for me to stop. Sorry! But let’s just say that to this day I’m able to vicariously visit most Communicants in the entirety of South America, and most certainly those in this dump, thanks be to my parents (R.I.P.) and about six months work of the F.B.I. against an enemy in the Cayman Islands. One day I’ll have to get to that autobiography. Yikes!