As with many Americans, my support of the UN fluctuates between 0 and 10. Yet, at the July 21st meeting, during which Israel was accused of criminal actions against humanity by its bombing of Lebanon beyond all proportionality, my vote weighed in at a 10.

Today, Israel has bombed a number of Lebanon TV stations, but pictures continue to come through on those not yet destroyed. The most heart-wrenching of all are scenes of frightened, screaming, maimed children.

They should be sleeping in cribs with fresh sheets and stuffed animals guarding them, and mobile airplanes circling overhead, airplanes without bombs. and Johannes Brahms’ “Lullaby” playing softly in the background.

Debbie from the United States commented upon what Celine Dion’s version of that song meant to her tiny daughter:

“My daughter Emily Anne was born at 32 weeks and was hospitalized in the NICU unit. Unlike my first daughter I was unable to hold or take care of Emily and that was very difficult for me to deal with. The nurses in the NICU unit always told me to talk to her because she could hear me. The most comfort I found was singing to her Brahm’s Lullaby. I would sing it to her every moment we were together. When Emily came home from the hospital I would play the CD for her and sing along too. It was amazing how quickly she would calm down if she was upset. Emily is 3 years old today and she still loves to dance to the song. She will even sing along a little with me. Thank you for such a beautiful version of a timeless classic.” (http://www.celinedion.com)

Teenagers can use music therapy, as well, especially during war time. Years before today’s bombing of Lebanon, 12-year old Marina N. Riadi’s first experience of war began in 1967 with Israel’s occupation of her little town of Bethlehem, the rest of the lands of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She was not allowed to travel freely within those lands of Israel proper. Everyone was captive in the small towns.

Marina was starved to visit with girls her own age across the ” borders” known as the “Green Line.” “I wanted to find out about their lives, their hopes, their dreams,” she said.

One day, her father announced he would take his daughter to West Jerusalem, where she could explore and talk with Israelis. His wife was worried and exclaimed: “You’ll be arrested for going into Jerusalem without a permit. Then what will I do? Where will I find you? Plus, you’re taking the child with you, which makes two of you to worry about. No, you’re not going!”

But the father was determined, and off they went to Jerusalem. At the border, they had to leave the taxi and walk up Jaffa Road, then Ben Yehuda Street, and over to King George Street, careful not to attract attention to themselves.

Many of the store owners were new Jewish immigrants and did not know the city as well as Marina’s father, who had not lived in Jerusalem for the last twenty years. He showed her the radio station where he played his music and performed on the air with Jewish musicians, who were new immigrants from Europe – mostly from Germany and Poland. He told her how much he enjoyed playing with them and learning about European instruments, and teaching them about Middle Eastern instruments.

Eventually, the two travelers became hungry and stopped into a small café, called Kapulski, which had been taken over by immigrants. Her father told her that the pastry shop had been the best in West Jerusalem, and that his family would order platters from there for parties, receptions, birthdays and other social events.

Eventually, father and daughter began to experience the physical and emotional burdens of their adventure and decided to return home. On the way, Marina stopped to look in the window of a music store. She loved music, and she spied an album of the musical, The Sound of Music.

Her father looked at her, read her mind and said he was all out of Israeli money. The album would have to wait until their next trip. However, after seeing her disappointment, he decided to see what he could do.

The store owner was friendly and shook hands, which encouraged Marina’s father to ask if Jordanian money would be accepted there, that they were from Bethlehem, and were on their way back. The owner said Jordanian money would make the album very expensive.

With tears in his eyes, he said he understood the problem and the risk his visitors were taking. Immediately, he wrapped up the treasured album and said the next time they visited the store, they could pay for it, that he could tell Marina’s father could be trusted.

What joy the album must have brought to that youngster, through the hand of friendship extended between two men, a stranger and a father, caring, loving a vulnerable teenager. Peace in the afternoon.

According to the author of the book, Why Do They Hate Me? by Laurel Holliday, Marina Riadi now lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where she has worked for peace organizations in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.

It is not only in the midst of war that music therapy is used. In the Friday, March 24th, 2006 issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dan Majors tells about the healing power of music at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburg, where Debbie Benkovitz, music therapist, prescribes “Baby Beluga in the Deep Blue Sea” or Bach for the patients, to perk them up or calm them down, and she moves the music in the direction the hospital staff wants the child to go.

“It’s absolutely amazing,” said Autumn Lord, 23, a registered nurse at Children’s Hospital for two years. “I think it’s just like medicine. She’s basically one of our medicines for getting kids to calm down. She’s wonderful.”

She enters a room of the hospital’s larger Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – with a guitar slung over her shoulder, pushing a cart with a keyboard and all sorts of smaller instruments. There are rattles and shakers and drums.

“I have a lot of experience with children,” said Ms. Benkovitz, 54, a licensed social worker who is a trained music education teacher with a voice major and a piano minor. She studied music therapy at Dusquesne University and began working at Children’s Hospital in Oakland almost three years ago.

“I’ve been teaching them, I’ve been working with them. I have kids of my own. Kids consider me more like a grandma-type, which just horrifies me,” she said with a laugh. “But it gives me a different relationship with the kids. I love it.”

According to this morning’s issue of the Chicago Tribune, Lebanon will be needing thousands of music therapists in the weeks ahead for children and adults alike, if our country’s leaders have their way.

We thought, silly though we were, that Condoleezza Rice had been working overtime in her office, on the phone, in meetings, etc., to be sure that when she landed in Rome, she would be well prepared to serve us by brokering a peace among all interested parties. As I said, silly we...

She wasn’t thinking peace, she was thinking war, as in a rush delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Ldebanon, according to American officials’ report to writers David S. Cloud and Halene Cooper.

There was little debate among the Bush administration, for it became in short order a done deal. The disclosure of the information will increase Arab anger, as the U.S. supplies to Israel may well be compared with Iran’s resupplying Hezbollah. Some military officers said Israel’s request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was unusual and an indication that Israel had a long list of targets in Lebanon still to strike, sort of like knocking over blocks in a playroom.

Let us stop for a moment here while I try to get this straight. Rice has been employed as Secretary of State, a sort of world diplomat. What’s so diplomatic about ordering armaments for another country to drop on its enemy?

Sounds like a fifteen-minute plan the Mafia might have hatched in a smoke-filled room with the curtains drawn, not by a representative of the Washington thinking elite, impeccably groomed, with the right credentials, and an accomplished pianist, besides. (Tickle the keys, while the bombs drop, children scream, and nations quake.)

Just a thought: Is a secretary of state required to have passed a course in ethics from a certified university? Just think of the millions of Jesuit-trained MBA’s who could have been taught her and members of the State Department that the end does not justify the means. We’re not talking here of the age-old example of the dad who steals a loaf of bread for his starving family. We’re talking about murdering thousands of people today, maiming more, to guarantee we don’t need to come back and do this all over again, messing up appointment books for the next four years. To be practical, who will be left to eliminate? Let the bombs drop now. Get it over with. Nice and tidy-like. Lady-like, too. Directions issued without a hair out of place or a collar askew. Plane trips can be sooo wearying, don’t you know? ( Not as wearying as standing before a world court on trial for war crimes.)

If, by now, you need your very own lullaby, be our guest:

Brahm’s Lullaby (Cradle Song, Wiegenlied).
Words translated from Karl Simrock by Arthur Westbrook.
Music by Johannes Brahms.

Lullaby and goodnight
With roses be dight
With lilies bedecked
In baby’s wee bed
Lay thee down now and rest
May thy slumber be blessed
Lay thee down now and rest
May thy slumber be blessed ..

And for us grown-ups, this may be appropriate, considering all who will die in the weeks ahead:

O Lord, support us all the day long,
until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed
and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.
Then in your mercy grant us a safe lodging,
and a holy rest,
and peace at the last.
Amen.

John Henry Newman

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