Susan Boyle was the BBQ Stopper Yesterday

All across the western world people yesterday were stopping at work, sitting in their loungerooms or chatting with their newsagent about the youtube footage of Scot Susan Boyle on 'Britains Got Talent.' I blogged with a link to audition where she frankly sang like a seasoned professional as if the star of a musical.
I mentioned 'what a lesson it was in seeing us as we are not who we appear to be'... the audience and the judges laughed at her age, ambition and appearance... but what she reminded me of was hundreds of young people I meet all the time, of that feeling you get when you have the priviledge of getting to know the person behind the facade and realise that there is 'Jesus' in each of us... that part of us which reminds that we are created in God's image, loved by God and valuable!! In this it reminds me that includes me, even when I often don't feel like it!
But it's not because Susan Boyle can sing like an angel, it's because Susan Boyle is a beautiful person. The truth of that is there in the clip, not in her singing but in her unbridled joy at being recognised, at being seen... and it would be true even if she ddidn't see it or show it... BUT its her singing that is the vivid reminder...
Zacchaeus, the Bent Over Woman, the woman at Simon's house, and many others are stories I find inspirational, precious and heart wrenching for their demonstration of God's values and encouragement of us that we are valuable and can be valued members of a community of people seeking to transform the world. Not an individualistic, consumerist sense of self which puffs us up and helps us feel we have rights and the permission to consume, wear brands and demand our space... that we have the capability of changing the world more like...
The clip was a sobering reminder that like those I cited in a symposium paper 2 years ago as part of a focus on stories, we are all deeply connected, in need of affirmation and need to see the Christ in each other. If we did we could be the change we want to see in the world!
I meet the Susan Boyle's of the world every week and get annoyed with myself when I forget that regardless of how they come across, see themselves or treat me I sometimes fall into that and forget to treat them with full respect, care and the love of God! Sometimes I get it right too...