Appearing on the T.V. show, “Britain’s Got Talent”, 47 year old Susan Boyle stepped on stage to fulfil a dream. The Youtube video shows the audience and judges seeming to laugh at her because of her age, her face, clothes, body – whatever – and she shut every one of them up when she began to sing, then opened every one of them up to joy.
It’s not just that her singing is beautiful (which it is), but the amazing effect it had on every single person in that audience and world wide. She broke the rules by daring to be amazing while simultaneously defying the social ideals of beauty. And she wasn’t quiet about it, she didn’t change herself, didn’t apologized for a thing, silenced their laughter, touched their hearts and changed them all.
What is more wild?
The video has gone viral. She sang live before 3,000, but millions have heard her sing, and been moved to her angelic voice.
And also by her other message – follow you dream. In fact, she sang a song called “I Dreamed a Dream”.
Susan is a llifetime resident of Blackburn, West Lothian, Scotland with her cat Pebbles.
“I wanted to fulfill a wish to my mother that I wanted to do something with my life. Not only that but I felt like I had a bit more to offer,” she said in a t.v. interview.
And true wild woman that she is, she remarked “They say that television makes you look fat and it certainly did. I looked like a garage.”
The world has not heard the last of Ms. Boyle, and we will all be the richer for it.
Susan Boyle on \"Britain's Got Talent\"
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No matter how many times I watch the video clip – whether on YouTube or the US news shows – I am totally moved to tears by this woman’s courage. Courage in the face of “the beautiful people” staring at her and expecting her to fail because of the way she looks. Just that, her appearance, is what she was judged on. Most people are so shallow that they never look beneath the surface, really look, and see the person inside, the only person that counts in the end. No matter how beautiful someone is on the outside, I warn my sons, it’s what’s inside that counts. The outside will fail, will stretch, fade, droop, wrinkle, atrophy, excoriate, wither, and become “ugly” no matter what they do to avoid it. But the eyes, they don’t age, they are all that’s ever left to see of the young woman she was, full of hopes and dreams. I tell my sons to look beneath the surface, to see through the makeup and hair, the wiggle behind, the youth, and look for the woman’s soul. Not unlike Sealskin, Soulskin in WWRWTW, we must always remember to look beneath the surface, to the deep, still waters of the soul, where the real action is. When we’re 105 and ready to die, it’s all we have left – our souls and our eyes. If I never looked in a mirror ever again, I would miss nothing. I bet that Susan sees the wonderfully gifted woman she really is when she looks in the mirror and not what she “isn’t” – young, slim, beautiful – the unreal ideal we are all told is the only way to be accepted and successful. We can all learn something from her, I did, and I want to never forget it. As we say here “You go, Girlfriend!!”
What this woman did, against all the odds, is truly moving. Talk aobut ‘Sealskin,’ she is truly the person under the surface water. I will work hard to copy her courage. The flesh always fails, but the soul shines through. As we say “You go, Girlfriend!!”