“Amazing Grace how
sweet the sound...”
I was recently asked to
lead the singing of the classic "Amazing Grace" at a friend’s wedding. It was an incredible
experience. What a gift! It is the first time I have done so at a wedding. I have
sung it in the past to end spiritual gatherings I have a part of. I also
sang it at my grandma’s funeral and I was asked to sing it at the side of
Ethan’s grave. God only knows how I found the strength that day. That was pure
grace, as his short life was perhaps the ultimate grace; the greatest free gift
of my life.
I took a few days off
last week. I spent quite a bit of it with family. On the morning before I set
off over to Yorkshire I was awoken very early, at the crack of dawn, by the most
beautiful singing. It seemed to be a new song that I’ve not heard before and I
wasn’t sure exactly where it was coming from. I discovered the answer on my
return a few days later. As I was getting out of my car I once again heard this
same song and began to look around to find out exactly where it was coming
from. I eventually looked upwards and found the vocalist, perched on the roof
of my cottage. It was a magnificent blackbird. I paid homage to him and even
sang back at him. As I did he seemed to change his tune ever so slightly. At
which point I bowed as his was the superior tune and went inside. He carried on
singing, as he keeps on singing.
I digress. That morning
I took my usual route on the M62 and as I drove up the Pennines and past the
White Rose sign and towards Stott Hall Farm I began to think of grace of the
free gifts that have been given me in my life; life itself being one of them. “Amazing
Grace” was on my mind too and the times I have sung it. I was, as I often am on
this journey, filling with tears. Not with sadness, but with an overwhelming
sense of gratitude for life, for the gift of life and the gift of love despite
all the troubles in our world. Over the next couple of days I enjoyed the gift
of family and loved ones as I simply listened to them and remembered and reconnected.
Amazing Grace is a
classic hymn that has grown in popularity over the years. Some of the words can
be challenging. That said it is one of those pieces that can send a shiver down
my spine. The hymn itself may well be a grace.
It has been
described as a classic. David Tracy
claimed that classics are
"those texts, events, images, persons, rituals and symbols which are
assumed to disclose permanent possibilities of meaning and truth”. Amazing
Grace certainly fulfills this requirement. It has been doing so for over two
hundred years. It is quoted in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's
Cabin" It was adapted by Cherokee Native Americans during their forced
migration, known as the trail of tears. It became and remains a favourite
amongst the civil rights movement.
Amazing Grace is usually sung to the hymn
tune "New Britain". It has been recorded by a rich diversity of
artists including Rev J.M Gates, Judy Collins, The Royal Scottish Dragoon
guards, Aretha Franklin, Kylie Minogue and Joan Baez. It was even played by Mr.
Scott at Mr. Spock's funeral in the film Stark Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It
has surfaced and resurfaced in a variety of forms, both religious and secular
and across the generations and there seems little doubt that it will continue
to do so.
But what exactly is “Grace”? Well the word
itself has both secular and religious connotations. We can be given a period of
grace with regard to payment of goods procured. We can be in someone else “good
grace”, meaning we are in someone’s good books, we have gained their favour. We
might compliment a person by saying they are graceful in the way they hold
themselves or gracious in the way they act with others. In music a composer may
add “grace notes”. These are added extras that are not essential but may add an
artistic flourish to the piece.
At the recent ministers conference the
ministerial fellowship’s president suddenly asked me to offer a grace. I was
flummoxed at the time but somehow found something to utter. Many people offer a
“grace” before mealtime. Something I am unfamiliar with, but am becoming more
use to it. It is certainly something that is part of my duty as a minister.
Bizarrely it is something I had no experience of until I became a Unitarian. A
grace at mealtime is basically a prayer of thanks giving for the food we are
about to eat and the company we are about to share in. By saying the grace before
the mealtime we are of course acknowledging the sacredness of breaking bread
together, the sacredness of life and of course the sacredness of one another.
Now of course classically speaking the “Grace
of God” is a freely given gift of spirit that is unearned and undeserved;
something that comes to us, from beyond ourselves. You can’t touch it, but you
can know it. You could say that grace is a favour or perhaps a fortune that
comes to us unbidden. It does not come because we have done anything to deserve
it or not deserve it, it just comes. The part we can play is in recognizing it
when it comes and making the most of what it offers. Life itself is probably
the ultimate of graces. Think about it we did absolutely nothing to deserve the
gift of life itself, in all its joy and suffering.
As is my way I had a look at the etymology of
Grace. It is related to thankfulness, certainly in the Latin languages. Think
of the Spanish “gracias”, the Italian “grazie and Latin “gratia”. Both grace
and gratitude are clearly linked. One step beyond is the Latin word “gratus”
which means pleasing and from which words like gratifying and gratuity are
formed. On the other side of the coin comes the phrase “persona non grata”
which means an unwelcome person. Likewise a person who has fallen from grace
may be known as a disgrace. These though are often deserved states, they are
the result of actions, therefore they do seem somewhat removed from the
original meaning of grace.
Does any of this help us? Does any of this
tell us what Grace actually is? No not really. Why? You may well ask. Well
because Grace is an experience. It is something that you have either known and
therefore recognised or you haven’t.
So what is Grace?
Paul Tillich in “Shaking the
Foundations” stated that
"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It
strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty
life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual,
because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we
were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our
indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and
composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when year, after year,
the longed for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsion
reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and
courage. Sometimes at that moment a
wave of light breaks into our darkness. If that happens to us, we
experience grace. After
such an experience, we may not be better than before, and we may not believe
more than before. But everything is
transformed."
"Sometimes
at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness.” This speaks to me of
my experiences although it’s usually my ears that attune to it more than my
eyes, it often speaks to me in birds and song…”a melody of love”. It first came
to me at my darkest hour a few years ago and it has kept on coming to me ever
since. It stirs something inside of me that enables me to connect to life, to
live with purpose and meaning and to know love. That moment changed me forever.
You can’t really describe Grace, only the impact it has upon you.
It is the impact that Grace has had upon me
that I was thinking of during that drive through the Pennines. Of that first
little bird that spoke to me and then flew away and of all the other times they
have spoken to me and continue to speak to me. They truly are a Grace that
saves and inspires and keeps on moving me forward.
“Amazing Grace how sweet the sound”
“Amazing Grace how sweet the sound”
Grace is all around us. Life itself is the
ultimate Grace; the ultimate free gift. Let’s give thanks for it.
I continue to be amazed by "Grace" it is the sweetest of sounds...