Amazing Grace (John Newton; sung by Judy Collins and The Global Virtual Choir)

This is what I needed today.  Maybe you did, too...  💗


Judy Collins Gathers The Global Virtual Choir For World Health Organisation’s Solidarity Fund ‘Amazing Grace’
by Paul Cashmere on June 2, 2020

Two weeks ago Judy Collins put the call out for contributors to the Global Virtual Choir for a new version of ‘Amazing Gace’. The message was heard by the likes of Steve Earle, Judith Owen, Beth Nielsen Chapman and others resulting in something very special to benefit the World Health Organisation’s Solidarity Fund.

Judy Collins first recorded ‘Amazing Grace’ for her 1970 ‘Whales & Nightingales’ album. She used that version as a Vietnam War protest song. She says, “I didn’t know what else to do about the war in Vietnam. I had marched, I had voted, I had gone to jail on political actions and worked for the candidates I believed in. The war was still raging. There was nothing left to do, I thought… but sing ‘Amazing Grace’.

Now, she says, it feels like the same time again.“I recorded Amazing Grace with a group of friends at Saint Paul’s Chapel on the Columbia University campus in New York City. When my recording of Amazing Grace was released it became enormously popular all over the world,” she says.

“It was written by John Newton in 1772, a man who evolved from a slave ship captain to a writer of powerful hymns, and changed his entire life, becoming a model for spiritual transformation.

“That’s what we need today once again. Stay safe, help others and pray for the planet. I am sending this song out to all the doctors, nurses and patients. We will survive this with love and music and amazing grace.”


SONG:  Amazing Grace by John Newton (sung by Judy Collins and The Global Virtual Choir)

BOOK: The President Sang Amazing Grace: A Book About Finding Grace After Unspeakable Tragedy by Zoe Mulford, Jeff Scher (Illustrator) 

POEM:  Grace by Sarah Gambito

You won’t
kill me
because I
will not
oblige you
by dying.

I hold all
my hands
under
the cherry
trees.

Clusters of
shyest
pinks
joining
hands.

Laced
like this,

diadem
like this,

we live the
past/
present/
future/
all at once

and even now.

Wouldn’t we tear
seas,
cities,
money
to get to
each other?

The public
garden—

the books
of its leaves,

the leaves
of its books—

denotes privilege,
entitlement
gorgeous belief

that we’ll meet
again and
again
holding

this
feelingtone
of
flowers

QUOTE:  "The amazing thing about love and attention and encouragement and grace and success and joy is that these things are infinite. We get a new supply every single morning, and so we can give it away all day. We never, ever have to monitor the supply of others or grab or hoard." ~ Glennon Doyle

Welcome in Another Year (Zoe Mulford)

Happy New Year!

In her December 28, 2007 blog, Resolution Revolution: A Better Way to Start Your Year, Christine Kane writes:

The reason most resolutions don’t work is that they address only one level of your life. The DO level. It’s the DO-HAVE-BE model. “I will DO this thing.” (i.e., Lose weight) “So I can HAVE this other thing” (Self-Esteem) and I can BE this thing. (Confident.)

The average New Year’s Resolution doesn’t address the core of the issue - the “BE” level.

The best order for creating positive changes in your life is the BE-DO-HAVE model. This means you start from the BE level. When you begin changing on the BE level of your life, then the DO level and the HAVE level follow more easily.

When you start only on the DO level, then all the blocks on the BE level will often become the obstacles you can’t overcome.

Several years ago, my friend Kathy and I decided that, instead of making resolutions, we would pick a word that would guide us throughout the year. It would be our touchstone. It would remind us of living our lives at the BE level.

The word I've chosen is Release - it was actually Christine's primary example and it almost felt like cheating to pick it... but every time I'd attempt to consider something else, Release kept coming back into the forefront of my brain and wouldn't allow the possibility of any other concept.

For decades I've used the phrase "relate, relax, release", accompanied by motions (hands on hips, hands on shoulders, hands flung into the air over my head) which, I am embarrassed to say, I borrowed from an episode of A Different World, the sitcom with Lisa Bonet which spun off from The Cosby Show - upon just now Googling the term, I find I've had it in the wrong order all these years (oh f*cking well... :-)

So... Release feels perfect, for its many meanings, incarnations and subtleties - for the next 366 days (it's a leap year!), I intend to:

RELEASE untruthful relationships

RELEASE undue stress caused by overcommitment

RELEASE unrealistic expectations, of others *and* myself

RELEASE unwanted clutter

RELEASE unhealthy habits

RELEASE unproductive pettiness

And I am sure there are so many more aspects of this multi-faceted word that can be both a noun and a verb I've yet to discover - in a nutshell, if I don't love it (whatever "it" fits the situation), I've vowed to let it go...

Relate, relax, RELEASE - I feel better already... :-)

SONG: Welcome in Another Year by Zoe Mulford (lyrics unavailable but Zoe's website here)

BOOK: 365 Days to Let Go: Daily Insights to Change Your Life by Guy Finley

POEM: New Year's Resolution by Philip Appleman

Well, I did it again, bringing in

that infant Purity across the land,

welcoming Innocence with gin

in New York, waiting up

to help Chicago,

Denver, L.A., Fairbanks, Hon-

olulu--and now

the high school bands are alienating Dallas,

and girls in gold and tangerine

have lost all touch with Pasadena,

and young men with muscles and missing teeth

are dreaming of personal fouls,

and it's all beginning again, just like

those other Januaries in

instant reply.

But I've had enough

of turning to look back, the old

post-morteming of defeat:

people I loved but didn't touch,

friends I haven't seen for years,

strangers who smiled but didn't speak--failures,

failures. No,

I refuse to leave it at that, because

somewhere, off camera,

January is coming like Venus

up from the murk of December, re-

virginized, as innocent

of loss as any dawn. Resolved: this year

I'm going to break my losing streak,

I'm going to stay alert, reach out,

speak when not spoken to,

read the minds of people in the streets.

I'm going to practice every day,

stay in training, and be moderate

in all things.

All things but love.

QUOTE(S): "The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective." ~ G.K. Chesterton

"We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential." ~ Ellen Goodman