This song is powerful and thought provoking, but to really appreciate it: watch the video. The lyric's pairing of a victim's solution to domestic abuse with the fairs and parades of Independence Day is provocative to say the least. Add to that the video's overt religious imagery, and the result is a powerful mix of experience, social commentary, and faith.
The song invites controversy and asks far more questions than it answers. Starting with the lyric, there is the question of who, exactly, is celebrating revolution? (The town, the mother, the daughter?) The lyric purposely leaves it for the listener to decide what is right and wrong: is the day of reckoning justified? The victim's daughter, who voices the story of her mother where others looked away, defiantly turns conventional wisdom on its head: the weak becoming strong to make the guilty pay, by fire if necessary.
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Photo by Sebastian Ritter |
One wonders if the daughter's defiance isn't of the dangerous man that was her father, but of the silent town: folks who whispered, talked, and looked the other way. Did the fire simply give them something new to gossip about: the woman who killed her husband? They can safely debate the day of reckoning, and thus ignore the choices they made that allowed abuse to continue. The daughter is defiant of any hypocrisy that is willing to condemn her mother, but unwilling to condemn silence.
The video takes a controversial song and deepens the questions with religious imagery. The video opens to the third verse of Amazing Grace. This deliberate choice to skip the first two verses, coupled with the director's consistent highlight of McBride's cross earrings and necklace make the religious imagery impossible to ignore. The religious imagery is there with intent and purpose.
The religious imagery shifts the entire focus of the song. No longer is it a solely a question of whether the mother's actions were right or wrong. The question remains, but the song shifts to being about safety, home, and grace.
The daughter has found grace in her mother's choice. Whether the mother was right or wrong, the daughter is innocent of responsibility for the choice. The daughter found grace and home through the danger, toil, and snares she would have known with a dangerous man for a father. Did the mother know that it was only a matter of time before the daughter was next? Did the mother know that whatever her daughter might face in the county home, it was preferable the future she faced in her father's house? The resurrection image of rolling the stone away from the tomb becomes more than a powerful rhyme: this daughter was given a new life.
The religious imagery turns the mother's motive from revenge and self-defence into self-sacrifice and protection. The morality and questions about the mother's actions get harder to answer. The mother is the only one who, however questionably, acted to protect an eight year old innocent. The mother is the only one who was an agent of God's grace.
The one who is willing to whisper and talk about the moral choice of the mother, but unwilling to protect and defend the daughter is in the wrong. Her mother brought her grace. Her mother acted. When time ran out, there was no one about. If those who whisper and talk had simply been present, the story would have ended differently.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart demands that we offer love to those who need to know love most. If the mother was wrong, then so are people of faith who refuse to act as agents of grace when it matters. Faith that can condemn the mother, without working to offer her a place of shelter, is dead. Faith provides shelter. Grace comes through legislation. Mandatory reporting rolls away the stone. Stiff penalties for abusers bring victims safety, home, and the chance to know a life lived in grace and love.
THE NATIONAL DOMESTIC ABUSE HOTLINE:
1.800.799.SAFE (7233) 1.800.787.3224 (TTY)
DISCLAIMER: The author does not support victims of abuse taking the law into their own hands. Neither does the author support people whispering and looking the other way. If you are a victim: call the domestic abuse hotline. Find shelter and an advocate to give the guilty a day of reckoning. Let freedom ring in court and make them pay! If you are whispering or looking away: do something.
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