Beech Tree News Network

Sometimes, during the a.m. hours, I’m awake, sitting in a recliner or lying on the futon in the BBC room, flipping channels on the TV.  I’ll watch anything that will keep my mind off the pain in my legs.  Wednesday night, I stumbled upon the Susan Boyle story.  You remember her.  She is the middle-aged Scottish woman who walked onto the stage of “Britain’s Got Talent” and blew everyone away with her voice.  (If you have never watched that film clip, do yourself a favor, and pull it up on YouTube.)

            Susan Boyle was born in Scotland in April of 1961.  She dreamed of becoming a professional singer since the age of twelve.  She had already carried that dream around for thirty-five years when she walked onto that stage in front of a large audience and a panel of judges.  Simon Cowells (a judge on American Idol for years) asked Susan, “What’s your dream, darling?”

 Susan responded in a thick Scottish accent, “I’m trying to be a professional singer like Elaine Page.”  The snickering and smirking rippled through the audience and the panel of judges.

 “And why do you think it hasn’t worked out for you,” Simon asked.

 “I’ve never been given the chance before, but I’m hoping that will change here,” Susan answered.

Susan was given the go-ahead.  She opened her mouth and sang the first line of “I Dreamed A Dream” (Les Miserables) and within seconds, the audience were on their feet, cheering.  The judges were visibly shocked—even the cynical Simon Cowells.  When the song was finished, Susan blew kisses to the audience and turned to leave the stage.  The judges had to call her back.

“When you walked out here and said you wanted to be a professional singer like Elaine Page, everyone was laughing at you,” one of the judges said, “but nobody’s laughing now.”

Susan Boyle released her first album in November of that year.  It debuted at the number one spot.  She has gone on to release more albums and even got a chance to sing with Elaine Page.  The program I watched on Wednesday night, when I couldn’t sleep, followed her career from that night in April of 2009, to the present.

The thing that impressed me most about Susan is how she sought help from people to help her through the process.  She has an agent who is her biggest cheerleader.  She has family who are willing to stand behind her and let her be the star.  And she has a psychiatrist.  She has a psychiatrist to help her work through her fears and phobias, because you see, Susan Boyle has Asperger syndrome.  It is a form of Autism that can cripple a person with fear.

It was touching to watch both Susan’s agent and her psychiatrist encourage her to keep getting out there.  The agent set up a series of concert tours in Scotland to help her get used to a touring schedule with the hopes that she could someday do a world tour.  She would often break down before going on stage, but her agent would be there to help her have the courage to go on.  Often, her psychiatrist would be waiting in the wings to tell Susan she knew she could do it.

“They’ve done a mental assessment, and they say there’s nothing wrong with me mentally,” Susan said to the camera, during the filming of the documentary. 

Those words were heart-breaking in their sincerity.  Those words told us she had lived with that fear all her life, the same fear many of us live with on a daily basis—the “What’s wrong with me?” fear.  The answer to that question for Susan Boyle is the same answer to that question for you and me: There’s nothing wrong with Susan or you or me.  We’re just gifted.  Susan and you and I have a talent, a way of being in this world that is our own special gift.

There is a verse from “Proverbs” that says, “A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.”  Or in the words of that other great philosopher, Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself…everyone else is taken.”