If you’re feeling helpless

If you’re feeling helpless, if you’re feeling hopeless, if you’re feeling betrayed, if you’re feeling frustrated, if you’re feeling angry, I understand. That’s why we’re here tonight. We needed to come to Washington and feel your strength, hope, and faith.

These were the words that Bruce Springsteen said before singing Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom”, during a recent concert in Washington, D.C.

His message was not just one of denunciation; it was one of solidarity—connecting people to the common threads that comprise our humanity, that make universal rights a foundation for a free society.

The song is a dramatic poetic tour of a stormy night, in which the storm unites instead of dividing and the power of Nature becomes a celebration of human rights and freedom:

We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing,
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds,
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing,
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight,
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight…

The experience of human frailty, suffering, and sympathy echoing in the storm continues…

Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing…

In 1988, honoring the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he sang Dylan’s beloved freedom song in Stockholm, to recognize:

“inalienable human rights for everyone, regardless of your race, your color, your sex, your religion, your political opinion, or the type of government that you’re livin’ under.”

On the eve of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he sings it now as a reminder that our shared national purpose is the recognition and protection of the unalienable human rights of all people. This is the solidarity that brings unity, the source of our hope, and the meaning of our freedom.

Bruce’s iconic “Born to Run” opens with the words “In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream…” The dream is not easy; it may not be anything but what is already happening, and we make the most of it. Everyone’s story includes more struggle and frustration than we tend to recognize.

Put all of this together, and it is clear why people are gravitating to him as a voice of joyful defiance and a guardian of a shared sense of hope. His message is that all people deserve real dignity, freedom, and justice.

That is what will be celebrated this July, as we look back on 250 years of imperfect striving for that transcendent ideal.