Spreading the Message of Hope
Just A Country Boy with the World on His Shoulders:
There’s
not much that gets John Denver down. Not for long anyway. Not world hunger, nor
nuclear proliferation, nor destruction of the environment. All are issues he
worries about, but they won’t get the best of him. He simply refuses to accept
negativity.
"There
is purpose in all of this,” he says. “We have to have a greater sense of
compassion for what it takes for people to learn.”
·
So Denver has put considerable time, energy and financial
backing into helping organizations such as Environmental Action, Save the
Children, Friends of the Earth, The Wilderness Society, Environmental Defense
Fund, the Kushi Foundation and the Hunger Project - to name a few. But it’s
hunger that has probably taken up the most of his time, even as his anthems to
the wilderness have garnered the most attention.
...Progress
takes time, he believes, and sometimes only after much waste and destruction
can meaningful progress occur. “I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday,
[folk singer Artie Traum], who has always been an optimistic person,” Denver
said. “Over the last few weeks he’s been terribly depressed and he just can’t
seem to get out of it with all these events, the Korean airlines, then Beirut,
then Grenada.
· It seemed like we’re on a course that we can’t
get off of.
And
he’d started feeling futile about the whole thing. But in our conversation, as
we talked about this, all of a sudden he was feeling optimistic again.
·
You see, there’s purpose in all of this.
What if
we look back, twenty years from now, and the thing that turned it all around
was having missiles over in Europe and finally the whole continent got together
and said, “No, no more”, and really forced the rest of the world to take a
different look.”
All of
these issues are related in his mind. He believes in “akido politics” or the
politics of harmony.
- “To my mind, a world without hunger will be a world without nuclear weapons.
- A world without hunger will be a world without crime.
- A world without crime will be a world where people are truly environmentally conscious.
- And a world without hunger will be a peaceful world.”
This
optimism may well be John Denver’s most famous trait. Natural beauty offers
solace from the world’s problems; it’s as though, when things are darkest, the
power and beauty of the earth will be enough to restore vitality and happiness.
Denver
was coping with a dark period of his own when we spoke. He was on his way back
to his Colorado home after a long spell of traveling ... and he could hardly
wait for those country roads to take him home. .... By the time this reaches
print, Denver will be back home, “my base, the foundation in my life.” His
confidence tells him that more progress will be made there, his belief in progress
is unshakable, for himself and for everyone else.
“I
don’t feel that I’m serving my career right now so much as these really strong
feelings about what’s going on in the world today and all the changes that are
taking place. And people are making real positive changes that just don’t seem
to be getting quite so much attention as some of these other things do...”
“But
we’re all learning and, as it gets to be more and more a part of our
consciousness, we can get a magazine like Vegetarian Times to come out and
be more and more on the newsstands and have more exposure of these kinds of
ideas, the ideas of macrobiotics, more and more people all the time are making
that little click [between diet and health]. And we’re changing our lives, we
really are changing our lives.”
Denver’s
involvement with charitable organizations is the most direct form of this
education he speaks of. But he believes his music - which is not overtly
political - puts across a message as well.
“What
I’m trying to do in this world is to give myself to those things that bring
people together.
I think
music brings people together. Working on ending hunger in the world can bring
people together,” he said.
“These
things we’ve been discussing are just constantly on my mind. What I’m looking
for is another way to say it.
I don’t want everyone to think the way I do.
But I want them to think, and if I can be a
catalyst at all for them widening their perspectives, then I think that’s
worthwhile.”
[excerpts from February 1984- Vegetarian Times]
[Shared for inspirational and educational
purposes only. Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act
1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research.]
No comments:
Post a Comment