The video speaks for itself. Watch the faces as the judges and everyone in the crowd realize how judgmental their preconceived notions were. Even Simon couldn’t find anything wrong with it.
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22 responses to “Britain’s Got…Grace?”
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Tom – what a find!! Absolutely stunning. Talk about some Easter joy… Thank you so much for sharing this.
That was perfect! From the song to the look on Simon’s face… I love the crowd’s instantaneous applause after the first note. Really fun video, thanks Tom.
I cried. Thanks Tom.
…what a wonderful moment
Fabulous!
I think that moment of surprising acceptance is at the heart of human desire. What a great post. If you want to check out a similar clip, watch Paul Potts. He performed on the same show last year, and went on to win the show and sing for the Queen. I can’t watch it without crying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA
and pardon the Aerosmith.
That was absolutely great….my favorite part was Simon’s head resting on his hand with a look of child-like wonder on his face. Wonderfully singing, truly fantastic video.
Sitting here with mary and paul zahl, right there along with the rest of you…what a touching clip. thanks!
Bless her cotton socks… that was perfectly beautiful! I love the honesty of the judges before they share how amazing they thought it was.
Really a touching video. The one of Paul Potts last year can still make me weep when I watch it.
Thinking about it though, I wonder if it is something other than grace that makes those clips so powerful.
The crowd and judges had prejudged both contestants as losers based on their looks,but immediately changed their opinions based on the flawless execution of the songs. In other words they gained acceptance and accolade via the “good work” of singing with excellence. How is that grace? If they had sung poorly they would have been soundly booed and cat-called off the stage.
In God’s eyes we are the singers who can’t ‘sing a note’ with regard to pleasing Him, except in Christ.
Kyle, you make a great point. I think two things make it note worthy for the blog: 1. this is a frumpy middle aged woman, who had never been kissed, and has never sung in public. Everyone, by the time she came on the stage had written her off. 2.The song she sang was a powerful cry from the human heart about the reality of not only her life, but all of our lives. There was absolutely nothing popish about it.
Simon and crew represent all that is wise about this world. However once again the foolish things have confounded the wise.
In other words grace/the gospel is always happening where we would never naturally look.
Patrick,
For what it’s worth, I thought about the exact same thing before posting. The beauty is, in God’s eyes we get on that stage and CAN’T sing and we still get that response. This pales in comparison!
Thanks to Patrick for his post. To be honest, I wanted to say the same thing but felt The Oppressive Arm Of The Law in its happy feel good form and therefore ran and hid. Grin. That is, I felt like I’d be judged by all these elated wonderful people on the thread as a critical mean-spirited guy.
But since Patrick is more ballsy than me, I guess I can “come out” now and say “YEAH, WHAT HE SAID.”
Something that a couple people have brought up before on Mbird threads is that it’s important for us to use some care when we at MB use words like Grace and Gospel. They don’t mean “anytime there’s a human interaction that makes someone feel good.”
In this particular case I’ll be honest — I just saw no grace at all. I saw a very touching case of a person finally being given the reward she rightly deserves — which absolutely IS touching and sweet. There’s nothing wrong with being touched and appreciating such a moment. It’s just not grace.
As Patrick said:
“… [she] gained acceptance and accolade via the ‘good work’ of singing with excellence. How is that grace? If [she] had sung poorly they would have been soundly booed and cat-called off the stage.“
Actually my feeling here is exactly the same as how I have always felt about Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. Every Christmas as a child I remember everyone watching that and needing to pretend that I felt like them a kind of great sentimental warmth about the ending. But in fact it’s not a story about people loving Rudolph the Loser — it’s about properly recognizing Rudolph’s merits and only THEN giving him the respect and love he deserves. It’s a story that never spoke to me since I could never really believe that I was secretly a big winner with lots of great qualities.
Grace may be a bit of a misnomer here but it is an undeniably Nazareth-moment. Like Jake said, foolishness confounding the wise – something good coming from the least-expected place.
And let’s not forget that “Britain’s Got… Grace?” is a catchy title and looks fabulous on twitter…
I just feel so happy and blessed to be part of a Christian forum that uses the words “ballsy” and “abreaction.”
What a touching video. To make it even better, she sang my favorite song! Couldn’t be better!
-Emily
I loved this video. And, as a non-emoter, that there’s some big words!
The interesting part, the part that I am really intrigued with…is that I was moved. I. I was shocked. I was amazed. Had this person been beautiful, I may not have been so shocked and so amazed and so moved (ref: http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/04/14/pro-attractiveness-bias/). I sort of feel that here, in this video, the “Grace” isn’t oriented toward Ms. Boyle, but rather…me. I am no better than those who scoffed and rolled their eyes at her when she came on stage. I was emotional not in her triumph (though that was very moving) but in my shock of the unexpected. I had judged her, negatively.
This video really highlights, as Jacob said, how the weak confounds the strong, the foolish the wise…and that I am not too far above that confounding.
A very humbling video; thanks, Tom.
Just adding my big “Bravo!” to this video. Just wonderful.
I am reminded also of Salieri in the play/film Amadeus. He resented God for his unfair gift of talent to the imbecile Mozart. Salieri understood the vulgarity and injustice of grace and he got offended. Susan Doyle is another example of God giving grace to someone the world deems unlovely.
The song itself is heartbreaking–especially the line “I dreamed that God would be forgiving.” Feeling convinced that God is not forgiving might be the saddest, most awful feeling imaginable.
Also, I have to thank Susan Boyle for reminding me how awesome the soundtrack to Les Miserables is… “Now bring me prisoner 24601, your time is up and your parole’s begun…”