What if Susan Boyle sucked?
Let’s suppose an alternate ending to Susan Boyle’s performance. What if she got up there and was absolutely terrible? In my mind, the problem persists. There is still a valuation of worth based on gifting. I remember winning the superlative “Tallest” in High School. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was great and all. Actually, I thought it was kind of stupid. I have no control over how tall I am. To me, this was more akin to a Guiness Book of Senior Student Records than anything to be especially proud of. Even the word “superlative” has that bit about being “super” in there. If being tall made me super, what about people who are short? Why was there no superlative for them?
I read through many Youtube comments on Susan’s performance. They all spoke of what a beautiful person she is and I agree with their assessment. She showed a remarkable amount of courage and resolve. I wonder, though, if some people were suggesting that she is beautiful based on her voice. What if she got up there and was a bad singer or even a purely mediocre singer? Would people still be calling her beautiful? She still would have showed the same amount of courage. The only change is that she wouldn’t have been as gifted in the area of singing. There is a difference between having a beautiful gift and being a beautiful person.
I must confess that part of the video bothers me to no end. The girl with the sneering look at 1:24 in fills me with an amount of anger that is close to hatred. What a snobby jerk. I look down on her as much as she initially looked down upon Susan. I can’t really blame her, though, and maybe she was showing on the outside what I was thinking on the inside. Being young is in many ways about being cool. Being cool is in many ways about following trends and fitting in. Fitting in is in many ways about distancing yourself from others who don’t fit in. Being older with unremarkable looks and having never been kissed aren’t exactly attributes that our society values.
It took me some time to figure out why I was overcome with so much emotion while watching this video and the Paul Potts video as well. I don’t really know the answer, but I have a few ideas. We’ve all been in Susan’s shoes. We’ve stood alone and been on the outside looking in. We’ve all been dismissed as invaluable at one point or another.
I think it’s when the crowd gets up and starts cheering that gets me the most. It’s the looks on the faces when they move from sneering to confusion to amazement to acceptance to applause. Doubters are silenced and suddenly people are cheering. They are now rooting for success instead of failure. All the struggle finally sees a payoff as wrongs are being made right.
It touches something deep inside of us. It’s a frog being turned into a Prince and Julia Roberts going back to the clothing store. It’s me in high school giving my heart to silence everybody who didn’t think I should have made the team. It’s me right now getting into the best shape of my life to stick it to the snobby girls like the one at 1:24. Susan’s performance is for anyone who has ever said “you were wrong to treat me as inconsequential”. She was singing for us all.
I guess it can work in reverse order as well. I can’t help but recall the mob shouting “Hosanna in the highest!” followed up by “Crucify him!” one week later. The man who would touch lepers and hang out with prostitutes. The one who had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. The despised and rejected one who gave and continues to give all of us value – even the ones who spat in his very face.
(Update 6/2009 – I’ve felt convicted by some of the things I wrote in this post. An addendum to this post can be found here.)
Touched
I was visiting a church one day in Florida and was treated to a special performance by one of the parishioners. He got up there and was about to sing a special song that he had been working on. I was looking forward to listening because I like music and it would be a good way to pass the time and sometimes these performances are quite good. However, that was not the case with this man. As a matter of fact, he was terrible. His voice cracked and shook and was almost as out of tune as his guitar.
Sometimes you have to ask yourself why you remember something that is so forgettable. There is a reason his performance stuck with me for so long. He was the opposite of polished, but in many ways he was better than polished. He was raw. He was genuine. He sang from a lowly and unassuming heart that had been touched by someone who saw something in him that he couldn’t see in himself.
So much of our culture is predicated on being better than others. Whether it be having better stuff, being a better athlete, or being better looking – everyone seems to want to outdo everyone else. I think what it boils down to is a sense of worth. If I a better, I am worth more. I think that you can usually tell how much you are valued by another and I can’t think of many people who want to be passed over, ignored, and pushed aside.
As I think back on that performance, I can’t help but feel convicted for the ways I categorize people and place more value on some than others. The man who sang on that stage initially didn’t have a lot of worth in my eyes, but his words reminded me that there is a system of worth much different than the system I so often buy into.
I remember being in middle school when Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to come to my hometown of Goffstown, New Hampshire. Things like this don’t happen very often in Goffstown. Actually, things like this never happen in Goffstown. The streets were lined as we all waited to watch him waive as his limousine drove by. I was much shorter back then and was just hoping to catch a glimpse of the star when he passed.
Going much further back in history, there was another small man in a crowd as the King happened to be going through town and was about to pass by. Zaccheus was not well regarded by others and probably didn’t hold himself in too high esteem either. But the King saw the outcast, wanted to meet with him and called him out of the crowd by name. After his encounter with the King, Zaccheus was never the same.
It would have been like Arnold stopping the limousine and saying “hey, you, scrawny kid from nowhere, new hampshire way back there, I want you to train with me”. It would be harder to see yourself as worthless if Arnold believed in you. It would be harder to see yourself as not having value after knowing that the King had put everything on hold in order to spend time with you. In a moment, everything has changed.
The song the man performed was called “The Touch of The Master’s Hand” and was written by a wheelchair bound woman with severe arthritis. There is no doubt that the man in church picked this song because it resonated with something deep inside of him. Check out the lyrics and you’ll see why.
I imagine that he was picked on in school. I doubt many girls wanted to dance with him at the prom. My guess is that he is still waiting for his 15 minutes of fame. But sometimes the last become first, the poor have great wealth, the uninvited have the best celebration and the weak are in better shape than the strong. Things that are not are called as though they were and myself, Zaccheus, and the man singing the song off key join with the foolish, weak, ugly, lonely, forgotten, shameful and lost to eventually discover that we mean something to somebody and are priceless to the only one whose opinion truly matters.
