There’ll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover

As the hours quickly rush by and we get closer to that special Christmas morning, the mind of a Historian in Training floats back to the past on falling snowflakes.  I recently found a recording of Dame Vera Lynn singing “There’ll be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover.”  Recorded in 1942, it was one of the most popular songs of World War II.

The song came out before the United States entered the war, and England was fighting for its life against an onslaught of Nazi air raids.  The battle of Britain between the British and German air forces was taking place, and the tiny island stood by itself in defiance against the seemingly invincible German blitzkrieg.  These were desperate times for our cousins across the pond, and the outcome was by no means assured.

These days we’ve got a lot of problems in this country, and although I would never want to minimize the hardships many of our fellow citizen’s face, compared to the England of 1942, clearly things could be much, much worse.  The song’s words were meant to look ahead to a time when things would get better, no matter how bleak they seemed at the time.

Since New Hampshire has its own Dover, on the ocean, just like England, I thought maybe our lucky little State could borrow a dose of the same medicine that helped the British get through some really tough times.  I think it’s OK if we use their song, since it’s only a metaphor.  There are actually no bluebirds indigenous to England.  The song was referring to the bluebird of happiness, which I learned in Historian Training 101, is indigenous just about everywhere.

There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover

Tomorrow, just you wait and see.

There’ll be love and laughter

And peace ever after

Tomorrow when the world is free.

The shepherd will tend his sheep,

The valley will bloom again,

And Jimmy will go to sleep,

In his own little room again.

There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover

Tomorrow, just you wait and see.

As the unemployment numbers are endlessly discussed, the candidates jockey for the smallest position advantage, the TV begins to bloom with one negative ad after another and everyone is blaming everyone else for the distress we’re in, it’s a good time to take a minute and think about what we’re celebrating on the 25^th of December.  We’re going to remember a little baby who came into our messed up world to try to teach us how to do better, how to clean up the mess.  I wouldn’t be surprised if there were one or two bluebirds flying over Bethlehem.

Although we were taught in Historian School never to quote a Frenchman, ole Tocqueville made some amazing observations about our beautiful country when he took a tour in the early 1800s.  Sometimes a fresh set of eyeballs can see more clearly than those of us who are in the midst of the confusion.  He wrote in his book Democracy in America:

“Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country."

Some of us may find fault with Tocqueville’s observation, just like we find fault with our political opponents, the capitalists, the occupiers, the rich, the poor, the religious hypocrites, the heathen atheists, basically just about everyone who doesn’t agree with us.

But just for a week or so, in this blessed season, wouldn’t it be nice to believe Tocqueville got it right?  Wouldn’t it be nice to believe we love our God and love our neighbor as our self?  In the midst of really tough times wouldn’t it be nice to believe that tomorrow there’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover? I believe there will be, just you wait and see.