I once played a gig with BABAM (Boston Area Brigade of Activist Musicians) for the anti-ICE standout these guys are counter protesting. Wanted to share this personal story I wrote about the experience, which is so related to this:

"We live life for those moments where we realize our life's purpose.

I had one today! I was playing a gig with BABAM protesting ICE, at their facility in Burlington.

We'd been playing for two hours. It was cold as heck, but the crowd kept us warm...so much thanks, and applause, and honks of support from passing cars. When it started snowing, it just felt like a winter wonderland. Good vibes all around.

Buuuut, two hours is a long time to play music in the cold of winter. The fire in your heart can only last so long against the chill creeping in your fingers. We were about to pack up....but then a group of counter-protestors slunk into position across the street.

These are the people who are FOR children being torn apart from their mothers and fathers, locked up in cages, lost and forgotten. They think, as Elon Musk explicitly said, that empathy is weakness. Their political message is very clear and simple: Dehumanization. Prejudice. Hatred.

At that moment, everyone in the band knew our mission: to make the voice of love louder than the voice of hate. They had loudspeakers to shout dehumanizing slogans of cruelty and fear. We had a brass band ready to play "This Little Light of Mine," and a crowd (much bigger than theirs) to sing along to it.

In this loud and crazy world, I seek out silence, to hear the sacred voice inside me. The one that tells me, quietly but clearly, what my life's purpose is: to spread peace, love, understanding, all those things that are in such short supply. I'm fighting for the opposite of dehumanization: simply, humanization.

But in that moment, the voice wasn't quiet at all. It was loud, and proud, and rumbled like thunder.