She walks onstage, a middle-aged woman in clean, conservative clothes and a less-than-stylish haircut, and the judges and spectators have visible reactions: eye rolls, smirks, exchanged “knowing” glances. You can feel the collective “You’ve got to be kidding me” vibe. The judges smugly interview the contestant, and she answers them with honest, even saucy responses. She seems good-natured and oblivious to the fact that the judges and audience members have settled themselves in for some good ol’ schadenfreude: taking pleasure in the pain of others. They’re anticipating enjoying her failure.
Then the music begins, and when she opens her mouth to sing, what comes out astounds everyone: a strong, clear, beautiful voice that gives pathos to the song “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables. The judges’ faces soften, one’s jaw drops, another rises to her feet mid-song. By the time the woman sings “Now life has killed the dream I dreamed,” everyone in the theater has risen in standing ovation, some of them wiping tears from their eyes, the kind of tears the come from deep within you when you’ve heard something profoundly transcendent.
This scene, which happened recently on Britain’s Got Talent, has rocked the Internet, and Susan Boyle, the woman from some far-off village in England, is becoming a household name. You can see her triumph here.
I’m not sure why her story is taking the world by storm, but I do know why it has affected me so deeply. I watched a woman–slightly quirky, not the cultural ideal of beauty–take a large risk. She took it in the face of tremendous ill-will and opposition. Yet she has a gift and a dream–a gift and dream she has carried since she was twelve years old–and finally let the whole world see it and be blessed by it.
If you are a gifted person and/or have gifted children, you know the risk it takes to allow that inner light to shine for the whole world to see. The opposition can be fierce and unfair. Marylou Kelly Streznewski, in her book Gifted Grownups: The mixed blessings of extraordinary potential, says it like this: “One is not allowed to enjoy accomplishments, but one is not allowed to be average either. Somebody always seems to be waiting for you to fail so they can gloat” (p. 39).
So we and our children have two choices: 1) to shine and risk failure and opposition; or 2) to hide, blend in, and deny ourselves. Perhaps we can walk the line somewhere between the two and feel the constant tension of it. But no matter where we are on that line, we are to some degree allowing life to kill the dreams we dream.
But what do we really want? To deny ourselves forever? Or to let our gifts give birth to our dreams? I personally feel inspired by Susan Boyle. I want to take risks to allow the brilliance within me to shine–to experience possible rejection and failure but also the potential to provide a transcendent moment for the people around me. Maybe they’ll laugh, maybe they’ll scoff–and maybe, just maybe, they’ll be moved to experience the more within themselves too.
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