About six years ago, I had the sweet pleasure of having lunch with perhaps one of the most remarkable people I may ever meet in my life, Judy Collins.
For most, Judy Collins is the voice of the ballad, Amazing Grace, and her version has become the standard against which all others are measured. She is the gold standard of Grace. Often, as has been the case with other “famous” people I have met, that standard is merely fools’ gold, or at best a veneer of gold-plated appearance. However, if you ever have the blessed opportunity to meet her, you will see that there is no pretense, nor filter in place.
This song has become a staple for many occasions and will be heard across most Anglo-speaking countries tomorrow under the auspices of St. Patrick’s Day when mostly Americans will flock to Irish-styled Pubs with English names, and listen to Scottish Pipes and Drums play “Amazing Grace.”
Yet, the song itself was written by John Newton, a former slave trader, who was making amends for the atrocities of the profession that he had helped flourish. The agenbite of inwit, or re-morse of conscience, again has lead to one of the greatest hymns in the history of the English language. From what can be considered one of the worst desecrations of humanity, slavery, comes something so incredibly beautiful and moving, that it almost shocking to think of the hand that penned it.
That is the mystical power of Time though, that what may at one point be the seemingly absolute worst moment in the history of either our lives, or the history of humankind, as a direct result, over Time, something great may come of it. The Greeks did not ask if one was “happy” at any given Time, because one cannot measure true happiness, or eu-daimonia (literally, good spirited), by a single moment, but by the sum total of our lives, which, unfortunately, if you do the math, means after our deaths. In other words, the Pursuit of Happiness, is futility in praxis, for the results, we will not know in this lifetime, for a pursuit is ongoing, unto Death.
My sister worked with the acclaimed film Director Terrence Malick for his award-winning movie, The Tree of Life, which pits the world of Grace and the Mother against the world of Nature and the Father within the heart of the Son, who is a combination of the two. Leibniz, an 18th Mathematician and Logician, as well as co-inventor of the Calculus and who was a Philosopher and Ethical Thinker (in the days when dallying in a variety of things won you praise, not scorn and derision as in today’s hyper-specialized world), was greatly interested in the concept of Theodicy, or the presence of Evil in a world created at the hands of a Perfect God. How is it possible? Leibniz believed that we live in the “best of all possible worlds” and the key element is Love, and Love over Time. For, Leibniz wrote about the world of Grace and the world of Nature and the struggle, which was played out between them, through Love.
Our world is full of Grace in every day life, in the small, simple pleasures, but, it is also full of the brute force of Nature, in Death and in tragedy. It is how we combine the two, and how we will find the elegance of Grace in the awesome power of Nature’s indifference that will determine us, it will make us who we are. And, it is a process. From being blind, one can see.
I could not find this on Youtube, but here is an Amazing a capella rendition with lyrics. Thank you, Ms. Collins
