"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
~ Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms
~ Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms
"Our lives disconnect and reconnect, we move on, and later we may touch one another, again bounce away. This is the felt shape of a human life, neither simply linear nor wholly disjunctive nor endlessly bifurcating, but rather this bouncey sequence of bumping into's and tumblings apart."
~ Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her FeetThursday, January 14, 2010
Jessye Norman - Amazing Grace...Wembley Stadium 1988
“For twelve hours groups like Gun’s and Roses have blasted the crowd through banks of speakers, riling up fans already high on booze and dope. The crowd yells for more curtain calls, and the rock groups oblige. Meanwhile Jessye Norman sits in her dressing room….Finally, the time comes for her to sing. A single circle of light follows Norman….No backup band, no musical instruments, just Jessye. The crowd stirs, restless. Few recognize the opera diva. A voice yells for more Gun’s and Roses. Others take up the cry. The scene is getting ugly.
Alone, a capella, Jessye Norman begins to sing, very slowly:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found –
Was blind, but now I see.
A remarkable thing happens in Wembley Stadium that night. Seventy thousand raucous fans fall silent before her aria of grace.
By the time Norman reaches the second verse, “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved…,” the soprano has the crowd in her hands.
By the time she reaches the third verse, “Tis grace has brought me safe this far, And grace will lead me home,” several thousand fans are singing along, digging far back in nearly lost memories for words they heard long ago.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.
Jessye Norman later confessed she had no idea what power descended on Wembley Stadium that night. I think I know. The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.”
-Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace
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That's a beautiful testament of what bold faith, lived out, can do. I pray many lives were brought to the gates of heaven as Jessye Norman sang about the Good News/amazing grace of Jesus - Savior of everyone who trusts... Romans 1:16-17
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