Life
Experiences of Bill McDonald
From the Book
"A Spiritual Warrior's Journey"
Amazing Grace
It was
during the summer of 1994 that a most wonderful and unexplainable experience
took place in the lives of my daughter and me. It all began when I went to
Los Angeles
for a church convocation. I was staying at a hotel in the downtown area and was
attending the classes and meetings in the same hotel.
One afternoon, between events, my old friend Bob invited me out to
lunch. He wanted to take me to a local Indian restaurant that was only a short
walk from the hotel. We had a great lunch and some good conversation. We left
the restaurant and began our walk back to the hotel.
We walked through the downtown area where many homeless people hung
around the streets. As we stepped around one corner, a man with a wild look on
his face jumped up in front of us. He thrust a filthy finger at Bob as he
shouted out a date, including the month and the year. My friend stood frozen as
their eyes met. I asked Bob what that date meant to him. He turned to me and
said that it was his birthday, right down to the year.
We were both dumbfounded as to why, or how, some homeless man could
possibly have known that kind of information. The man had looked just like all
the other homeless men we saw around us, except for that strange look in his
eyes. We turned and walked across the street to get away from the homeless man
who had shocked us with his sudden insight. He did not follow us as we made it
safely to the other side of the street.
Just outside the metro station steps, we came upon an old black man.
He was standing with a tarnished saxophone in his weathered hands. The beat-up
old instrument case lay open on the sidewalk with its precious few collection of
coins. I felt an odd compulsion, so I approached him. I asked him if he accepted
requests for music. He said he did, so I asked him if he could play my favorite
hymn, “Amazing Grace.” He gave me an odd little smile, nodded, and said he would
give it a try.
Then, that old man lifted his dull saxophone up to his chapped lips
and began to softly play. As the music began to flow, people walking by on the
street actually stopped. Cars slowed down, rolling down their windows to better
hear. The music that spilled from this man’s sax was unlike anything I had ever
heard before.
Bob and I just stood there. Tears formed in my eyes. The music was
so sweet and peaceful. The old man was playing this traditional spiritual hymn
in a jazz style that sounded utterly perfect. The strangest thing about his
music, however, was the effect it had on all those people who had just moments
before been running around in their business suits and mentally engaged in
worldly affairs. Even the other homeless men seemed to be transported beyond
this street corner serenade. It was as if we were all together in some chapel,
instead of on a busy LA city street. I noticed that people coming up from the
Metro station stairs had stopped to listen. No one was moving. All of us were
transfixed by the music coming out of this old man’s saxophone. When
I looked at the musician, I noticed that a change had come over him as he played
that song. His once dirty, street-hardened face and hands now appeared much
softer. His eyes sparkled with a moist, far away look. He held that instrument
tenderly, lovingly, as if it were his child. As he finished the song, he had a
glow about him; he seemed radiant. A soft light seemed to come from him.
I quietly put a donation in his case. It felt as if I were putting
the donation in the collection basket at my church on Sunday. He had a small,
knowing smile across his ebony face. I asked him to play it again for me as I
walked back to the hotel down the street. So, once again he put that sax to his
lips and began another sweet rendition of “Amazing Grace” in his soft jazz
style.
Bob and I reluctantly headed back to the hotel. The sounds of his
sax followed us and seemed to bounce off the tall office buildings that
surrounded us. That song had not only transformed both of us, but I noticed that
other listeners seemed to be as emotionally moved as we were.
When I boarded the plane to return home to Sacramento, I could still
see that old man’s face etched in my mind. The sound of his music was still
playing within me. I sat on the plane, completely at peace with myself and the
world. The memories of the song caused tingles up and down my spine, almost as
if I were in love or being loved.
Now, here is the rest of the
story…
When I returned
home, my daughter came to visit me. As I began to tell her the story of the old
man and the song, she stopped me. She asked me if it had happened that past
Thursday. I replied, “Yes, it had.” She asked if it had taken place about one in
the afternoon. I replied that it had. She then told me about her experience with
her boyfriend, at that same day and time in Sacramento while I was still in LA.
She and her boyfriend had been driving around town, and she was
trying to find some music on his car radio. As she was turning the dial, she
happened upon the sounds of a saxophone playing the hymn “Amazing Grace.” She
went on to explain that it had sounded very different from anything she had ever
heard before. She said it had sounded kind of like jazz. The song was so moving
that they pulled off the road so they could listen to it with their full
attention. They had both listened to the hymn in awed silence, just sitting
there in the parked car.
I was moved by her story. I found it wonderfully strange that a
radio station could have been playing that same song, at the same time, as my
street musician was playing it for me in LA. Also, both versions of the song
were played by a sax and both had that soft jazz sound to them. The reactions of
my daughter and her boyfriend were just as emotional as Bob and I had in LA.
I needed to take my daughter to pick up her car that same morning
after we exchanged stories about what had happened to each of us. When I turned
the key over to start my pickup truck, the radio came on playing “Amazing
Grace.” It was not the same version, but it brought us a moment of reflection
over all that had happened. I suddenly had a wave of blissful love engulf me as
the impact of what had happened sunk in.
We both looked at each other, and we felt bonded together forever. I
do not know how any father and daughter could ever feel any closer than we did
at that moment. We will never be able to fully understand what happened, but we
will always cherish the memory of that hymn “Amazing Grace.” Now, whenever I
hear that song being played or sung, I feel such inner bliss because I know that
God really does love us; and he blesses us in so many ways.
“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.”
#
Copyright 1990 - W. H. McDonald Jr.
