The Whitney I Knew (12 page)

My friend Maya Angelou wrote a poem for President Clinton's inauguration entitled “On the Pulse of Morning.”

The poem calls us to lift our eyes to change—to a new day in which to dream and to be the person we always knew we could be. Maya's words also challenge us not to give in to fear but to overcome fear with grace. You and I need grace daily. Just as we have a deep need for it, so also do our friends and family members and neighbors. I love the idea of stepping forth with a new dream and allowing that dream to shape our lives.

Whitney took hold of her dream. Her success inspires and infuriates us. We love that she had it, but we're not sure if the exchange was worth it in the end. Sometimes you give up so much to attain what you can only dream about.

Whitney needed grace during her lifetime, and she still needs grace from us in death. We need to be okay with the highs and the lows of this life. We need to not let fear take our grace away, for it is by grace that we achieve our dreams. Grace gives us the freedom to pursue our dreams and the confidence to fail. In the Bible, the apostle Paul attributed our very salvation to grace—and grace is a gift. An unearned yet costly gift.

Whitney preached grace, and she seized as much of it as she could from a God who grants it freely. She'd want us to do the same.

A few weekends ago I was blessed to be invited to sing at St. James United Methodist Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, where Whitney would attend when she was at her Atlanta residence. It was through Whitney's funeral that I became connected with the church—a church endeavoring to do great things in the community and for the Lord.

Before I sang, the choir offered up a rousing number led by an exuberant young man. The people of this church were clearly gifted in their ability to sing and play instruments. Afterward, the lead pastor addressed these talents and praised God for the gift of worship. I was struck by the pastor's humility and sense of responsibility regarding worship.

It seemed natural to me that Whitney would attend such a church. I'm sure it felt like home to her: people standing all over the auditorium playing tambourines, raising their hands in prayerful worship. This church fit Whitney.

The pastor said something else that struck me. During the singing he approached the pulpit and brought the congregation back to the heart of the matter: “We need to be careful,” he said, “especially in this day and age, not to confuse entertainment with worship.”

The line today certainly gets blurred in churches all across America. But I reflected on the way Whitney fused entertainment and gospel—worship—so effortlessly. She was able to entertain with the best of them and then transition into a truly heartfelt gospel
number. Whitney understood what it meant to have fun, there's no doubt about that. But she inherently knew how to guide that passion for the entertaining moment into a moment of reflection and wonder.

Now I'm sure that plenty of the folks attending her concerts were not too interested in joining in a worship service, but Whitney didn't care. She sang the songs that made her feel good. She was blessed with worship, blessed to sing the songs that made
her
heart sing. That's what made her special.

I've often said that a good song speaks to the heart. One friend of mine reminded me of the words of poet Robert Frost: “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” Yes. Perfect. That's what Whitney knew. The songs that moved her would move her listeners, and the songs that moved her were the songs with deep meaning—gospel songs, songs of faith and hope that pointed her home.

One line in “Jesus Loves Me” says:

I don't know how many times I've sung these lyrics. The context is almost always little kids singing to parents, and parents “oohing” and “ahhing.” But I sensed when the lyric says, “Little ones to Him belong,” it's not only talking about children. I think it's talking about us adults.

When Whitney sang “Jesus Loves Me,” I saw and heard a child.

I think the song was her invitation to each of us to become a child again.
We
are the little ones.
We
should allow ourselves to open up once more to what God wants for our lives.

I believe that during Whitney's time away from doing music, during her marital turmoil, she realized she had wandered from God. The lyric I added to the version of “Jesus Loves Me” that she sang for
The Bodyguard
single became her prayer years later, I think. I'm convinced with all my heart that this should be my prayer and yours as well:

Amid all the headlines of Whitney's tragic death, we learned one telling detail: that not only was “Jesus Loves Me” the final song she performed publicly but one of the last songs—if not
the
very last song—she sang before she died. Despite her struggles and frailty, she still believed the God of her salvation loved her. I dare to believe a little further: That there in her hotel room, before she passed from this life to the next, she voiced it once more—“We are weak, but He is strong”—without any cameras around. A moment of private worship between one of God's children and her heavenly Father.

When I watched Aretha sing, the way she sang and . . . closed her eyes and that
riveting thing just came out. . . . Oooh, it could stop you in your tracks.
Whitney

What does it mean to be gifted? What do you do with your gift?

I answer the question about giftedness like this. In Whitney's case, there were (and are) plenty of singers in the world. And by
gifted
, I mean, they possess obvious vocal talent and may even be able to make a career out of singing. Was Whitney gifted? Obviously. Her enormous talent oozed out of her.

But with Whitney there was something else. So many people saw and heard it, but few can find the words to express it. When Whitney's mentor, Clive Davis, first heard her sing at the Sweetwater Club in Manhattan he said, “To hear this young girl breathe fire into that song . . . it really sent tingles up my spine.”

This is why I laugh at the notion that she sold out the black community and didn't sing with soul. The girl was straight-up anointed, and younger black artists, both male and female, from the range of genres today—rappers, hip-hop, R&B, pop, and gospel artists—have all credited her as a guiding star on their musical journey.

Now, those of you reading this who didn't grow up in the church are probably wondering what in the world I'm talking about when I say she was “anointed.” Don't worry, I'm not going to crack you over the head with a Bible. But a little context might help.

One easy-to-understand example of an anointing in the Bible is when a shepherd boy named David was anointed to become king. The prophet Samuel anointed David by pouring oil on his head to signify that he was God's choice to be Israel's next king.

Anointing
is a special setting apart by God, intended for his glory. In my opinion, the great black minister E. V. Hill was anointed. When he preached, the walls shook and people's hearts shook and those heart walls came tumbling down.

If you've ever heard evangelist Billy Graham preach, I would say you were hearing an anointed man—a man whose words have been set apart for a special purpose. For decades, he preached simple sermons that persuaded hundreds of thousands of people to the Christian faith all over the world.

Are you feeling my words? Am I doing a bit of preaching? Sure.

Whitney could preach too. But her sermons weren't laid out in an outline. Whitney's sermons came from that “pool of soul” deep within her. Whitney's pulpit was not made of wood or metal. Her pulpit was a microphone stand and a piano or band. And her message was glory itself.

“The Creator has created. There will never be another Whitney Houston,” said Maya Angelou after Whitney died. “She made the listener believe that he or she was doing the singing. . . . She sang not just to you, but through you. That's a gift.”

In church, when you hear a good preacher, it's as if he is speaking the words directly to your heart or actually reading your mind and speaking the words you've always wanted to say to God but never could. That's what Whitney did when she sang.

You use your gift—you give it away, just as we're supposed to do. Whitney knew from a young age that she loved to sing. When I heard her on the radio in that cab, I knew that I was listening to a person who understood they possessed something special.