The following is a Vitality email sent June 20, 2025. To sign up for Vitality, click here.

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A few years ago, I was attending Meeting for Worship when a neighbor’s car alarm went off. The horn continued to ring, interrupting the worship space. Like most car horns, it was difficult to ignore. It also sounded jarring and interruptive.

For some reason, I started humming. Maybe it was the singer in me, or maybe it was a small Divine nudge. I sang in harmony with the horn. Together, the horn and the humming sounded almost musical. 

Then I received a message.

“Quakers are the song that rises to greet the horn. We are not the only ones singing. Others are singing too. But we are good at listening, so we are good at hearing the horns.”

It seemed to me that the horn created the backdrop for the song. And the song, in turn, transformed the horn noise into something else.

The message continued: “The horns are getting louder. There are more of them, now – more people are hearing them. They are getting jarring. Now is the time that we need more of us singing.”

I don’t know who the “we” is in that message. I’d like to think that it refers to Quakers and people of faith. I do believe that the horns in my life are getting louder, though.

A few weeks ago, I was at a Pride parade. It was beautiful, bursting with color. The joy was infectious.

Then I heard an angry voice behind me. A white man had started yelling. He was yelling about all the people that God hated. He carried a sound system that boomed his words over the crowd. Two other white men joined him, each holding posters about sin.

In response, parade volunteers formed a “love wall” around the three men. People attending Pride cheered harder and clapped more. The cheering couldn’t quite cover their strident voices, though. The clamor of the sound system echoed for almost half a mile. 

You know what happened next?

I started to hear a strange, repeating, high-pitched tone. It came from near the men, but it made their voices harder to hear. I wondered why they would interrupt their hateful spew with a beepy sound.

Then I realized that the beeps weren’t coming from the men. Someone stood near them, facing the sound system and facing their hate. That person carried a pennywhistle.

This tiny wind instrument added an insistent “beep – beep – beep – beep” over the people yelling. I found it harder to hear what they were saying. I found it easier to watch the drag queens and rainbow balloons without feeling afraid.

The person with the pennywhistle did not waver. They stayed by the men for an hour, beeping.

They had found a way to harmonize with the horn.

Johanna Jackson

Communications Coordinator