The President Sang Amazing Grace (Joan Baez)

[The Wielding Truth]

4. Tears are in my eyes and my heart is full. Thank you, Hestia.

“Somehow Obama, with his humble singing voice, turned grief into grace. With humility, compassion, and a two-hundred-year-old hymn, he made us feel that the evil deeds of a sick individual could not shake the bonds of our common humanity.” For Scher, Obama’s performance expressed the emotions of “what it was like to be an American on that day— to have a great leader lift us up from despair.”