This song and talk is from the “Good Trouble” rally in Northborough, Massachusetts on July 17 2025.
Also a reminder that I will be doing a special live stream concert tonight (Wednesday, July 23) at 8PM EDT in my usual places. The theme is “In Our Hands - Holding Peace in Divided Times”.
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I am waiting in the silence
I am waiting for the dawn
I am often found in reverence
Though from many sources drawn
It is not mine to fight for justice
For it will not be won this day
I am peace and I am waiting
For the lost to find their way.
You'll not find me set in judgment
Of the vain or of the weak.
But I rise to meet the weary
With the soulless that they seek.
Still I have not fed the hungry
Nor strewn wealth among the poor.
I am peace and bring but mystery
And the patience to endure.
I cannot save the suffering
From their anger and their pain
Only open doors of insight
So the healing comes again
To the proud I am elusive
To the humble I am near
May the broken rise and look beyond
The trappings of their fears.
I am found among the seasons,
Autumn's death and spring's rebirth,
As relentless their momentum As the turning of the earth.
All are welcome in my presence
For only love can conquer hate
I am peace and for the harvest
I have planted and will wait
Jim Scott ©2007
It's been about 60 years since the first time I marched with a civil rights march in 1965 in Rochester, New York. I've been doing this for a long time. And I was in the Army. Okay, thank you for your service. And I played with the Paul Winter Consort for years.
I've been an environmental activist for years, and I'm often out with the marches. And I've got the battery-powered speakers, which is kind of like having a pickup truck. You know, everybody asks you.
So here's what I think. It's great to get out here and everybody vent and, you know, what just happened? What a terrible thing! And we're going to vent and show our anger. Yeah, we've got to hold the line. But we have to be careful to not become us and them.
There are people driving by, I'll bet, who think we're them already. We're defined by the opposition. And we've got to make sure that doesn't happen.
We can be teachers and we can be diplomats. It's not easy at all of course what we got to do in the next 16 months. A little less than 473 days we have to change the Congress. That's our job, I think, right now. And we've got to be teachers. Yes, enrolling new voters, that's one thing. But talking to the person that you didn't want to relate to, you know? That uncle. Okay, we'll still let you live in the attic, but you've got to talk. You know what I mean.
This is no fun. It's slow. It seems like you'll never get anywhere, but it works. I heard an actor playing a diplomat on the radio, I mean, in a movie. I'll bet you saw the movie too, I can't remember. And he says, diplomacy, it never works, doesn't work, never works, doesn't work, until it does.
That's it. This is possible. You know, we ended slavery. We got the eight-hour day. We stopped the hole in the ozone layer, things like that. These things, this can be done. We've got an onslaught now like we never thought we'd have. We never thought we'd have to do this, but we do.
So thanks for listening to that.
Here’s a singalong that I led during the rally. We need to be singing and hoping together.
