Rise up
When you’re living on
your knees, you rise up
Tell your brother that
he’s gotta rise up
Tell your sister that
she’s gotta rise up
– Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
My daughter, Natalie, and I went to see the musical Hamilton last summer. What a powerful story about one of the most brilliant architects of our democracy… who also happened to be an immigrant. Of all the amazing adventures our family had together in London, seeing Hamilton might have been the most anticipated of all!
Natalie and I had Saturday matinee tickets and were planning on arriving early and grabbing some lunch in the neighborhood around the Victoria Palace Theatre before the show. But a few days before, the US State Department sent out a “Demonstration Alert” – a notification of two protests planned for that Saturday, including an anti-immigration march and an anti-racism march designed to counter the anti-immigration march. One of the two marches was scheduled to meet up at Victoria Station (right next to the theatre) in the late morning and then head on to Parliament Square. Although we had to find someplace else to eat lunch before the show, how fitting it was that the voices of a present-day democracy rose up and marched right past the theatre in which, eight times a week, a cast told and retold the story of people rising up 250 years earlier.
The phrase “rise up” is repeated as a motif numerous times throughout the musical, most frequently in a song entitled “My Shot,” in which Hamilton reflects on his moment in history and recognizes the larger context in which he finds himself – that it isn’t just a moment, “it’s the movement,” and that the work of social justice takes a village: “Tell your brother that he’s gotta rise up / Tell your sister that she’s gotta rise up.” It is by coming together that we can advocate for and create change in the world. And yet, the lyrics also make it abundantly clear that the communities that come together are made up of individuals – individuals whose contributions are essential. And so, in the context of this collective rising up, Hamilton acknowledges the importance of his own contribution, that he “will not throw away my shot.”
This duality can be such a tricky one. What, after all, can one person’s contribution achieve on its own? But without the aggregate contributions of individuals, there are no villages, no communities, to work together to create the world we want to live in. Historian Howard Zinn reminds us that “the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement.” Our church is proof of this potential, full of passionate, caring people who are ready to advocate for and create a better world. As a collective, we can, indeed, rise up, but only if we, as individuals, recognize how essential we each are… and if we, too, pledge not to throw away our shot!
