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| Ten Thousand Motels |
What's so amazing about grace?
March 2, 2007
BY CATHLEEN FALSANI
Chicago Sun/Times
"Amazing Grace" may be the most recorded song of all time. Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Mahalia Jackson, The Byrds, Jose Carreras, Willie Nelson and Ani DiFranco. Billy Ray Cyrus, Joan Baez, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the U.S. Air Force Reserve Pipe Band and David Hasselhoff. Ram Dass, Pat Boone, Jim Nabors and The Lemonheads. All have offered their interpretations of the famous hymn.
In 1971, Judy Collins had a Top 10 hit with her version of "Amazing Grace."
A high school student from New Orleans named Tiffany Ameen sang the hymn three times at George W. Bush's inauguration, and Red Cross workers sang it at the site of the United Flight 93 crash Sept. 11, 2001, according to Steve Turner in his 2002 book Amazing Grace: The Story of America's Most Beloved Song.
Universal appeal
And during a U2 show in Portland, Ore., Bono sang an acapella version of "Amazing Grace" in honor of Joey Ramone the day the iconoclastic lead singer of The Ramones died in 2001.
"Amazing Grace" has been the musical salvo in times of great joy and unfathomable sorrow, here and around the world. Whether it's a single voice, a mass choir, bagpipes or a jazz combo playing its tune or repeating its lyrics, "Amazing Grace'' holds a universal appeal.
According to various sources, the 19th-century Protestant hymn has been recorded more than 1,100 times. There are 746 versions of "Amazing Grace" available on iTunes, and a search of Amazon.com's music section turned up hits on 478 albums.
So, to borrow the words of the great contemporary Christian apologist Philip Yancey, What's so amazing about "Amazing Grace"?
A new feature film that opened across the country last week answers the question by telling, in part, the story of the man who wrote the words of the hymn some time between 1760 and 1770.
His name was John Newton and before he was rector of London's St. Mary Woolnoth Church, he was the captain of a slave ship.
When we first meet him in the film "Amazing Grace," Newton (played by Albert Finney in a performance so masterful and moving, I'd be surprised if this time next year the 72-year-old actor weren't trying to figure out where to put his shiny new gold statuette), is swabbing the floor of his church barefoot and wearing what looks like a hair shirt.
"Twenty-thousand slaves live with me in this little church -- there's still blood on my hands," Newton tells William Wilberforce, the English abolitionist, in the film, which is largely a retelling of Wilberforce's 20-year fight to eradicate slavery throughout the British Empire.
Newton, who experienced a dramatic conversion during a violent storm on his slave ship and, eventually, left the slave trade for seminary, is a man tormented by his sins even though he believes he's been forgiven by a loving God.
Not a saint
Toward the end of the film, when Newton is feeble and going blind, he tells Wilberforce: "Although my memory is fading, I remember two things: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great savior.
"I wish I could remember all their names, my 20,000 ghosts. They all had names, beautiful African names. We called them with just grunts. Noises. We were apes. They were humans."
This is the man who penned the words "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. . . . I once was blind, but now I see."
Those familiar lyrics held an entirely different meaning and weight when I understood who wrote them.
Newton was not a pious man. Nor was he a saint, by any stretch of the imagination. I can think of few things more repugnant than being a master in the slave trade, a purveyor of human flesh in the most heinous of ways.
Grace is a gift
It's hardly a surprise that, while he preached and believed in grace, according to the way his story is portrayed in the film, it took him nearly his entire life to accept it for himself. Newton struggled to believe that he was forgiven for his sins and that God, as he doubtlessly taught his flock on more than one occasion, removes our sins from us "as far as the east is from the west."
Grace cannot be earned.
It is a gift, and not one that you receive when you purchase something, sign on the dotted line, or win the race.
I believe it was Yancey who once described grace this way: Justice is getting what you deserve; mercy is not getting what you deserve; and grace is getting what you absolutely don't deserve.
It's a concept that makes no sense to the human imagination. And even for the man who immortalized the idea of the amazement of grace in one of the world's best-known songs, it almost was impossible to really, truly believe.
And yet . . .
Grace doesn't depend on us believing in it or not to exist, to be real, to flood our lives, buoy our spirits or change the world.
And that is amazing.
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The Amazing Grace of William Wilberforce
by E. "Doc" Smith‚ Mar. 02‚ 2007
Beyaonchron.org
Many years ago, when my older cousin Bruce headed off to college on a basketball scholarship, I asked him where he was going to. "UCLA?, UNC?, Georgetown?". "No, I'm going to Wilberforce, in Ohio," he told me. "Wilberforce?", I naively asked him. "Who was he?" Bruce smiled and said, "He's the cat who ended slavery in England, look him up." Indeed, Wilberforce is considered one of the Historically Black Colleges, and rightly so. The new film, "Amazing Grace", recounts the life of William Wilberforce, abolitionist, statesman, and his lifelong friendship with then British Prime Minister William Pitt. This is a truly inspiring film and will leave anyone who watches it, moved by an incredibly important and compelling true story.
Amazing Grace the film, was directed by Michael Apted and chronicles the campaign against the slave trade in 19th century Britain, led by it's most famous abolitionist William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was responsible for steering anti-slave trade legislation through the British parliament.
The title of the film of course, refers to the hymn "Amazing Grace" and the film also recounts John Newton's writing of it. Ioan Gruffudd stars as William Wilberforce, Albert Finney as John Newton, Rufus Sewell as Thomas Clarkson, (Wilberforce's cousin), my favorite Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour, in his first film role as Olaudah Equiano, Benedict Cumberbatch as Prime Minister William Pitt "the Younger", Romola Garai as Barbara Spooner, the woman Wilberforce married, and Ciarán Hinds as Sir Banastre Tarleton, one of Wilberforce's chief opponents in the House of Commons. Richard Bailey and the great Michael Gambon as Fox also star.
The film's opening on February 23, also coincided with the 200th anniversary of the date the British parliament voted to ban the slave trade. Amazing Grace begins with Wilberforce taking a holiday with his cousin, in which much of his past life is recalled. While on holiday he meets his soon-to-be wife, Barbara Spooner, who convinces him to tell her about his life, and through his eyes, we see the rest of his story. The film continues with their wedding, when the song Amazing Grace is sung. Afterwards, he heads back into politics to try once more to do something about the slave trade. In time, and after bitter defeats, he is eventually responsible for a bill being passed through parliament which abolishes the slave trade in the British empire for ever.
Wilberforce's relationship to William Pitt was another untold and moving tale in itself. I don't know where Pitt ranks amongst the Winston Churchills, Benjamin Disraelis, and other Prime Ministers of England, but he's high on my list. Pitt had his hands full with the "madness" of King George, revolutions in the U.S. and France on his door step, and all the while plotting to end the slave trade with Wilberforce. It is not surprising they are buried side by side in Westminster Abbey.
Thanks to Wilberforce, the movement's most visible champion of the time, Britain ended slavery, well before America, but in it's wake, the abolitionist cause in the U.S. began to flourish. There are other great films that tell a fascinating story of the struggle; Steven Spielberg's 1997 "Amistad," about the fate of blacks on a mutinous slave ship during the Van Buren era, and Marlon Brando's "Burn", aka "Quiamada" which chronicles a fictional Caribbean colony in the grips of a slave rebellion, come readily to mind. The actor Danny Glover is also currently working on a film about the Haitian revolutionary, Toussaint L'Overture, leader of the only successful slave revolt in the New World.
Amazing Grace is a fantastic film about people, greed, and human decency, about revolutionary ideas and the will to fight injustices against all odds. Slavery in one form or another still exists on Earth in 2007, and any film, person or group that sheds light on this, the darkest, most murderous secret of all, deserves our thanks, and our support. I think cousin Bruce would agree.
E. "Doc" Smith is a musician and recording engineer who has worked on the films "Psycho 3", "Who's That Girl?", and "Miami Vice", among others. He is also the inventor of the musical instrument, the Drummstick. He can be reached at [email protected]
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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| fireontheplatter |
if and when i hear this song around the holiday times...i lose it.
i whistle it from time to time
never question this song......
i cry tears...of joy.
it may be more powerful than satisfaction |
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| snap13 |
i love that hymn.. i want that sung at my funeral... |
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| Brainbell Jangler |
quote:
Ten Thousand Motels wrote:
And during a U2 show in Portland, Ore., Bono sang an acapella version of "Amazing Grace" in honor of Joey Ramone the day the iconoclastic lead singer of The Ramones died in 2001.
Take that, Bono-haters.
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