“Don’t take for granted the love this life gives you
When you get where you’re goin’
Don’t forget to turn back around
And help the next one in line
Always stay humble and kind”
“Humble and Kind” – Tim McGraw
Lori McKenna, a well-known Nashville club performer and songwriter, wrote “Humble and Kind,” but she said in an interview about the song, which she did release on an album titled “The Bird and the Rifle” that after writing the song for her husband and five children, she realized the potential universal appeal of the tune. She shopped the song around Nashville for a short time before finding just the right artist to perform the song, and she chose McGraw.
On the charts and in awards, the song was a monster success, but what happened with the song once it was in McGraw’s hands is that his team put together one of the best unifying videos ever produced, using scenes from a documentary Oprah Winfrey made called “Belief”. McGraw then performed the song at the American Country Music Awards (the performance video linked above if you’re reading this online), and he brought a children’s choir as well as a host of people representing various jobs, races, faith groups, and more to walk through the audience while he performed and join him on stage for the final stanzas of the song, part of which is quoted above.
The song sparked a moment of seeking out ways to express kindness to one another. A book was written around the song that was used to fund charities, and there was a website (since removed from the Internet) where stories about being humble and kind could be shared and gathered through a hashtag.
The messages in the song are absolutely poignant as we just celebrated graduation in Huron this past week and many area schools have also held graduation ceremonies. The book based on lyrics from the song was actually intentionally introduced in late April of 2016 to offer something for graduates.
However, it’s also a pertinent message to deliver to the adults in the room as well. We only need to look toward events occurring across the world every day for evidence of pride and intentional harm being more the call of the worldwide society than humility and kindness.
A parent whose child was in the school connected to the Islamic Center of San Diego, where a shooting occurred on Monday, stated that he talked with his children frequently about being safe because he felt as if the mosque was a “constant target” in the current environment. Beyond that, he worked with a group of families from a local Jewish school and a charter school with primarily immigrant families to have a network of information shared on any potential concerns, as all three had received anonymous threats in the past year.
The rhetoric in the letters posted from the teenage shooters in that awful incident is not based in reality, but its roots were recently reiterated in a letter to the editor in this paper.
Our children see so much that we don’t even recognize. They pick up more than the punch line of the most recent “dad joke” that you can’t get out of your head or the music you play on your way to and from school with them buckled in the back seat.
My children are all registered Sioux tribal members. Many of their best friends from our diverse Huron school system have been Asian, Latin, Black, and of a wide variety of cultural, religious, and other backgrounds. Unfortunately, that has meant that they experienced name-calling on the bus and on the playground aimed at them and at their friends, simply because of differences.
This weekend is Memorial Day weekend. Many will spend Monday grilling burgers and hot dogs and drinking beer. Maybe they’ll turn on a ball game or go fishing with the day off of work. Others head to the cemeteries to lay wreaths, plant flowers, or simply say a word of thank you and a prayer for those who sacrificed their lives in service to the country. This isn’t something in the past, either. To date, more than two dozen United States citizens have last their lives in the Iran War., with more than a dozen of them being US military personnel. So, today, tomorrow, next week, there will be another name added to next May’s Memorial Day list for those who lay wreaths, indicating just how ongoing this is in our world.
We set the tone for our children, and we also set the tone for those who represent us in our government. The rhetoric and flat-out lies during the campaign for governor in this state and extremely partisan behavior of the government in general as we head to a midterm election in the fall is only happening because we allow it to. Nearly none of the “attack ads” you see everywhere (it was once safe to avoid the barrage of ads by disconnecting from traditional cable, but now those ads are all over social media and even inserted into podcasts and YouTube videos!) ever appear with any candidate directly saying, “This is xxx, and I endorse this message.”
No, those attacking advertisements are paid for by groups who often are providing millions of dollars of funding to the candidates, and they’ll not shut off that financial income source as long as the voters don’t force them to, often even making laws that allow for more funds to be donated to campaigns. I’m not sure about you, but if someone were to offer me $2 million and then some time later let me know that they wanted me to vote one way or another, I would have a tough time saying no, knowing that money could certainly disappear if I didn’t appease the person providing it. That’s human nature – but not one that we should be encouraging.
In two weeks, we go to the polls to vote in primary elections, but we also have a school board election, a city commission election, and two districts in Beadle County voting in a county commission primary race. There are local elections and local primaries across the state that have nothing to do with the governor’s seat – but at the same time, they have everything to do with how we allow politics to behave in this country. If we want to see changes in Pierre or in D.C., those changes start at the ballot box in the Huron Arena. Once someone is in Pierre or in D.C., unfortunately, there are a lot more forces weighing in than the voter here, so this is the opportunity for you to have your voice heard loud and clear.
And whatever the result on June 2, let’s pray that our politicians, our state, and each of us can set the example of being humble and kind about the results and find ways to work together across our differences rather than using them as consistent points of argument, filling up our legislative days in Pierre and the Congressional Record in D.C.
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