In 1960, John and Marcella Essecks were the choir director and pianist at St. Matthews Cherub Choir in Economy borough.

The song to sing for a full church of about 80 people was simple and easy. Its lesson, however, must be difficult because we are still trying to fully understand it in the world today. Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Fast forward to 1973 at high school graduation in Freedom, Pa. The choir director was Robert Gibbs and the song is “Let there be Peace on Earth.” The second line is probably the most important: “And let it begin with me.”

There was a prayer vigil in Mars on Wednesday and it was a very pleasant and peaceful way to spend the lunch hour. There was never a hint of aggression or disagreement from those attending or those observing from a distance.

As is the norm, a number of news outlets tried to pit neighbor against neighbor and business against churches as social media pages got involved the night before. Intelligence and maturity stepped in and assured there would be no type of disruption either to the event or to business in the borough. Most of the persons who spoke were ministers, who spoke mostly of the problems of racial discrimination and disparity. One pastor may have been a little more personal and direct in speaking of his own position as well as what he perceives to be God’s position on the never-ending problem of hatred, which is the center of discrimination whether it is race, age, religion or any other type and also privilege.

That is what caused the first song to pop into our mind. If you believe as a Christian, then you have to accept that Jesus clearly showed he loved everyone, including the youngest and those of all races and skin colors. He also had absolutely no issue with face-to-face contact and touching persons with incurable diseases. The second song mentioned was sung by those in attendance. Yes, we did sing and some were not wearing masks. It is possible that Jesus wore a mask when he dealt with sinners and lepers, blind people and tax collectors, but we couldn’t find it in Scripture.

And the song is really important today. The lyrics “let it begin with me” are crucial. The secular world is not going to solve the problem of racism. We are not going to govern our way out of hatred for our fellow man. Even with all the great intentions of the group who assembled this prayer vigil today, it was still 10 white men talking about discrimination. No women, no persons of color and all 35 years of age or older. Not much diversity there. How hard did any of us work to make our neighbors who are persons of color feel welcome and invited? Was this show for us or them?

This we have learned from our daughters, our employees in Pittsburgh and from listening to activists from the black community talk to us. It would be easy to say that it isn’t really our problem; there were so few persons of color in the community to show up. Not one was stopping them. But we have to do better. “Let it begin with me” has to be our new response and resolve. There were two people of color who we saw there. One was active taking video and still photos. How many people sought her out afterward to thank her for being there? That would have been the most important thing to happen. We think Jesus would have said, “Bring her to me,” the same way he said to let the children come to him when the disciples were preventing them from bothering him.

Let it begin with me. Each and every one of us needs to adopt that attitude or the change we claim we want is never going to happen. Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me.