I mean, of course, Christina Grimmie.
She was a singer of astonishing power, precision, range, and depth of feeling. She played the piano beautifully, wrote her own songs as well as composing her own wonderful arrangements of covers from the early 2010s. Christina gave us great music, and so much more.
It is because of her pioneering work with YouTube and social media engagement that I believe that these technologies can be used to communicate the loving "presence" of a person, and a true "encounter" that awakens something new in the human hearts of those who "meet her" through the screen. I think she had a gift — a rare gift — for giving herself in this way, through media.
It's easy to miss this unique quality she had, but I think that in her life it was a vocation sustained by God's grace. Whether it was on YouTube, live streaming, Twitter, in her recorded music, in her own concerts, or in the amazing live television performances in 2014 on "The Voice," Christina "shook" people with her music, but also with her simple but profound humanity, with her extraordinary-ordinary way of living reality, with her openness and readiness to give her great talent and herself. She not only "broke the fourth wall" (as they say in audiovisual media), she made it disappear. Then, after her own live concerts, she wanted to meet everyone, to greet them with a hug and an open ear to listen to their troubles and aspirations.
Of course, this made her extremely vulnerable — but ultimately she chose to take that risk, knowing that love sometimes provokes rejection, hatred, and violence. But she offered herself with love, to "frands" all over the world who came to her concerts, to new people, to troubled souls, and finally to a person who was hiding two Glock 9mm pistols under his jacket. She was so full of music and song, and a "great love" that gave itself away to the end, who died doing what she had done so many times after her concerts: welcoming a stranger with open arms....
In this she was truly heroic — and though most of us are not called to take these particular risks, we do recognize in her a humanity that resonates with our own experience, but also a humanity that is "different" — a humanity that breaks down limits, that goes beyond itself, that witnesses to the fact that death does not have "the last word." Love has the last word. She moves us to grow, to desire more, to persevere in difficulties, and to become — slowly but steadily — a little less afraid.
I am uniquely grateful for the life and witness of Christina Victoria Grimmie (1994-2016).💚🎶 She sang, she loved greatly, and she didn't hide the reason why she did it all, the One to whom she belonged.
