Amazing Grace

Last night, in the second tier at Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center, a three-year old boy sat beside me. He was flawlessly dressed—his burnt orange jacket matching the laces on his shoes, his collar up around his ears, his pants dark, his shirt bright white—and his eyes were two fully rounded moons.

He sat on his grandmother's lap beside his mother, his uncles, his aunts, another child, perhaps his brother, while beyond, on the stage in that gorgeous, vibrant space, the Soweto Gospel Choir sang, and not only sang, but danced. Songs in Sotho, songs in Zulu, and the most revering, reverberating rendition of "Amazing Grace" that I will ever hear.

Through it all, the boy sat there on his grandmother's lap—undistracted, utterly seduced—his hands coming together for the beat, and sometimes he would syncopate that beat, and sometimes he would yield to the left, to the right, bend like a reed, for the choir's songs required dance of all of us. The colors of its costumes—mango, plum, lemon, salted lime—would not let our eyes go.

And then one among them on that stage said (a lilt in her voice, a song even as she spoke) that the Soweto Gospel Choir was singing for peace and global union. She said that, and the place went absolutely wild—first the clapping, then the roaring, then some standing tall, to say yes, yes, global union—and the child beside me went wild, too. As if he knew.

For he has his whole life ahead of him, and peace is still a possibility.