{"id":3270,"date":"2022-03-27T09:16:17","date_gmt":"2022-03-27T16:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=3270"},"modified":"2022-03-28T03:25:57","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T10:25:57","slug":"joy-on-the-battlefield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=3270","title":{"rendered":"Joy on the Battlefield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x150121-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2349\" src=\"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x150121-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>So innocent civilians are losing their lives in Ukraine, the world seems on the brink of war and I\u2019ve written a book called <em>1001 Fun Things To Do in Retirement<\/em>. Bad timing, huh?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe.<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe not.<\/p>\n<p>Less than a week ago, with Russian forces advancing on the capital from several directions, the Kyiv Classic Symphony Orchestra played the Ukrainian national anthem before a small crowd of bomb weary onlookers. Know what else they played?<\/p>\n<p>An excerpt from Beethoven\u2019s \u201cOde to Joy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOde to Joy,\u201d on a battlefield? Why?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe they wanted the Russian army to know that they could destroy their buildings but not their spirits.<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe conductor Herman Makarenko knew that joy has a power all its own\u2014a power greater than tanks or cruise missiles.<\/p>\n<p>The Jewish leaders did the same thing for a dispirited populace about 500 BC. They told them to stop mourning and celebrate a feast instead (i.e. a fun thing to do).<\/p>\n<p>Sounding much like the Ukrainian orchestra leader, the Old Testament prophet Nehemiah put it like this:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the joy of the Lord is your strength\u201d (Nehemiah 8:10).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So innocent civilians are losing their lives in Ukraine, the world seems on the brink of war and I\u2019ve written a book called 1001 Fun Things To Do in Retirement. Bad timing, huh? Maybe. Or maybe not. Less than a week ago, with Russian forces advancing on the capital from several directions, the Kyiv Classic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3270"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3276,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions\/3276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}