by Dave Boehi
So many people have written about Susan Boyle in the last few days that I've resisted getting on the bandwagon. But I've watched the astonishing video of Susan's singing performance on Britain's Got Talent a dozen times now, and I find myself wondering why I am drawn to it so strongly. I know I'm not alone in this, because the web is full of quotes from other people saying they've watched it many times; one individual wrote to Entertainment Weekly saying he had seen it 40 times. And as I write these words, videos of her performance have been viewed more than 30 million times on YouTube.
Why has this video become so popular? What is it about Susan's performance that causes people to cheer within seconds after she begins to sing? Why do tears come to the eyes of so many people, like they did to my wife, Merry?
The most-discussed reason is the most obvious: Susan Boyle reminded us that you can't judge talent by first impressions. We are, unfortunately, so conditioned by a mass media that celebrates beauty, and so often biased against those who fail to meet certain standards, that we expect only beautiful-looking people to have beautiful-sounding voices. As one of the Britain's Got Talent judges said to Susan, "When you stood there and said you want to be like [popular British singer] Elaine Page, everyone was laughing at you. No one is laughing now."
Our culture promotes appearance and outward packaging so obsessively that many of us fail to realize how we've adopted those values in our families, our workplace, and even in the church. In a blog on Crosswalk.com, David Burchett wrote:
I wondered how often we make the same mistake in the body of Christ that the show judges made in their initial judgment of Susan Boyle. We look at the outward appearance and make our decision. You don't look the part. You don't fit my preconceived notion. We are looking for someone better looking or more outgoing or more engaging. You could tell from the judges' sideways glances that they had already made their judgment about this unassuming woman.
And then she opened her mouth to sing.
God has given all of us a vital role in the body of Christ. Lord, forgive me that I have judged your people before I took the time to see how you have gifted them to serve.
There are some additional lessons to learn from this experience. Washington University professor Robert Canfield put it well when he said that Susan's performance touched the "feelings, yearnings, anxieties too deep for words" that all of us share.
All of us, for example, are belittled and mocked or dismissed at various points in our lives. If you look for it, you'll see it around you all the time in the way we interact in our marriages, with our children, with our co-workers. We look at the smirks and looks of disbelief on the faces of the judges and audience before Susan began to sing, and we remember the cruel words of a spouse, a parent, a supervisor, or those two girls back in seventh grade. And our spirits say, with Susan, Just give me a chance, and I will prove myself.
Another deep yearning all of us share is for respect. Just as we can identify with the lack of respect shown to Susan when she first walked on the Britain's Got Talent stage for her audition, we feel a thrill of triumph when she rocks the audience within the first few seconds of her song, "I Dreamed a Dream." They love her, they respect her.
When we do not receive respect from others, it hurts in ways that are, to borrow Canfield's phrase, "too deep for words." This is especially true in the family. How many sons, for example, feel something missing in their lives because they have rarely felt respect from their fathers?
Emerson Eggerich's excellent book, Love and Respect , discusses the unique needs of a wife to receive love from her husband and for a husband to receive respect from his wife. I agree with this premise, but I also realize that wives need respect from their husbands as well. In marriage, you want the person who knows you the best--the one who intimately knows your strengths and triumphs as well as your weaknesses, sins, and failures--to treat you with honor, courtesy, and dignity.
I suppose it may feel odd that I began this post by talking about a seven-minute YouTube video of a 47-year-old Scottish woman, and am ending it with thoughts about respect in marriage. Perhaps that's the power of this story—it touches the heart in unusual and expected ways.
Stumble It!
