All of Us Sparrows
by Anthony Esolen
The year is 1949, the place, New York City. In a big room are a Broadway producer and a woman novelist who, if she ever harbored religious faith, seems to have hidden it from everyone or to have drowned it in a bad marriage that resulted in divorce, remarriage, and the suicide of her husband, not to mention several illicit relationships and a lot of alcohol. Also there is a regular mountain of a woman, an African American. She, too, has led a hard and rocky life, much of it as a result of the wickedness of other people—bigotry and poverty of course, and a rape when she was only thirteen. They are trying to persuade her to play the lead in a Broadway production of the woman’s novel.
But she wants to impose two conditions. First, she will tone down the bitterness of her part as the novelist-playwright has written it. Second, she will not sing a Russian lullaby, as is specified in the second act. “I had never heard tell of a colored woman,” she would later write, “especially from Georgia, who had ever sung a Russian ditty to a child.”
“What, then, do you want to sing?” the novelist asked, crushing her cigarette in an ash tray.
“The song I’ve sung all my life,” she replied. It would be perfect for the part. But, she added, there was a certain name in the song, and she would sing it with all the tenderness she felt, even though some people might bristle at it.
“Sing it,” said the novelist. “Sing it through.”
Anchored in Hope
So Ethel Waters sang to Carson McCullers a gospel song written by a white woman back in 1905, though you’d guess it was a Negro spiritual from years before, as it expresses firm hope in Jesus in the darkest of times. She sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”
When she finished, McCullers was in her lap, weeping.
So did the magnificent black actress and singer carry the day against cynicism and unbelief. The show ran for almost two years, and Waters, with her co-stars Julie Harris and the little boy Brandon de Wilde, ended up reprising their roles in the 1952 film The Member of the Wedding, a film I judge to be better than the book, and precisely because Waters, as the black cook Berenice, anchors the tragic action in the realm of hope—hope in God’s providence and his kingdom.
Attend closely to the faces of these three characters when Waters sings the song: the shirtless little boy in overalls who complains that he’s feeling ill, though nobody believes him; the awkward and difficult teenage girl whom nobody understands; and the cook, whose advice nobody takes. Their singing of the refrain together at the end is, to my mind, the greatest single moment of religious song in the history of Hollywood.
Some years later, in 1957, Ethel Waters, baptized a Roman Catholic and considering herself a Catholic all her life, was brought back into the fullness of faith by that tireless Baptist minister and generous giver of his energy and earnestness and good humor, Billy Graham. She would later say, on one of her tours with Reverend Graham:
In 1957, I, Ethel Waters, a 380-pound decrepit old lady, rededicated my life to Jesus Christ, and boy, because he lives, just look at me now. I tell you because he lives; and because my precious child, Billy, gave me the opportunity to stand there, I can thank God for the chance to tell you his eye is on all of us sparrows.
The Eye of Jesus
Is the hymn sentimental? I don’t think so, not at all. When Jesus says that not a sparrow shall fall to the ground without the Father, he draws for us no picture of sweet birds chirping in the nest. For he is urging his disciples not to fear, though they are bound to suffer, to be hated for the sake of his Name, even to find that there are enemies against them in their own families, for he came, “not to send peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34).
We, too, must fall. And it is easy for us to lose heart, and even if by the grace of God we do not meet hatred for the sake of his Name, we all must die, we all must fall to the ground like the sparrow, the bird not worth a farthing. So we would do well to remember the Lord’s promises as we sing this song, with its slow, deliberate, strong, and calming melody:
Why should I feel discouraged,
Why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely,
And long for heav’n and home,
When Jesus is my portion?
My constant Friend is he;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me.Refrain:
I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free;
For his eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me.“Let not your heart be troubled,”
His tender word I hear,
And resting on his goodness,
I lose my doubts and fears,
Though by the path he leadeth,
But one step I may see.
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me. [Refrain]Whenever I am tempted,
Whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing,
When hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to him;
From care he sets me free;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me. [Refrain]
What is that happiness that abides in the midst of sorrow, temptation, doubt, fear, and even the looming shadow of despair? What is that freedom, when we have no control over the gloom about us? The world knows nothing of it. In those times when I look out upon the world and see madness, when I see the works of man’s mind and heart scorned and forgotten or, worse, defaced, when I go to the town that used to be my home and know that my place already knows me no more, I look to the Cross, and I say, “Whatever happens, I want to be with him.”
“I draw the closer to him,” as the hymn says. If you long for the life of life, draw closer to Jesus and his Cross. They do not disappoint. They set you free from the worst of care, the care that is bound up with expectations in this world. His eye is on the sparrow. Are we not worth much more? Did he give his life for sparrows?
Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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