"We shall be free, we shall be free, stand straight, walk proud...we shall be free." These words have echoed in my head for the past few days. Maybe its the vision that I get when I hear this song. Could be my fondness for it on Double Live. Possibly, its because I'm around children so much and to me, this song provokes some thoughts of their futures. Perhaps, its from the interest in Garth's charity for children, the Touch Em All Foundation. It could be that it's a favorite for me since my trading cookies for a kiss happened during the song in Nashville last May. Then, again, it could be what came in my mail the other day.

One of the most special things to me about being a fan of Garth's is what that brings to my world. I think if I had to put a limit on what I could tell him I am most thankful for from him, that would surely be included. It has given me many precious memories, some lifelong friendships, and some of the most special moments in my life.

You know the moments I'm talking about? Those almost errie circumstances that seem to find you at the most needed times. The silly moments when your looking at the Sunday newspaper and you see a Cookie Monster kids outfit with Cookie in a baseball hat holding a bat and ball. Next thing you know, you find yourself going the next day to see if the store has one...even though you have no kid to dress it in. Or when you are having "one of those days" and a song comes on the radio that literally takes you away from it all. It's those profound moments when you receive a card in the mail and in it, is a bookmark from a friend. Thing is, its the very same book mark that you gave to Garth a few months ago. It's those times when you just have to laugh when you find out someone you cherish as a friend, shares the same nickname with you that you both had in school. It's those times when you don't think anyone in the world can ease your heart and the phone will ring just as you pick it up to make a call...and its the person you were about to dial. It's getting an email from someone you've never met and they are opening their heart to you. It's shared jokes, shared laughter, same thoughts, same feelings, all revolving around Garth and his music.

Sometimes, during this sweet ride I've be privileged to be on, certain circumstances and people have entered my life. Some have been fleeting and yet they've left such an impact. Some have found their way into my heart to stay. At times, I've came across people that just make me want to reach out. It's a lesson I've learned from someone I love and admire with all my heart. It's the ones who never ask for a thing...the ones who don't expect anything...these are the ones that I find myself drawn too. So many times, these are the ones that are fleeting. They come into my life as if to teach me a lesson, to help me grow, and then, they are gone.

Children touch my heart. They always have. They always will. It's their innocence. It's their outlook, their strengths, their will to go on, it motivates me, inspires me. Children teach me, though I am older. They propel me to think, to do, to be. There's just an energy in children and a wide-eyed wonder that mystifies me. Yet, there are children who we have all encountered who don't have that spark, that fire, that uncontrollable spirit that defies all sense of time and space. I know when I see a child like that, a piece of my heart breaks. What has that child endured? How was that innocence, that purity lost? When did they lose that openness to love? Why did they lose their trust?

How often do we stop to think about children, not just our own, but all children? How often do we consider how they view our world? Do we speak one thing and expect our children to do another? What feelings do they have about war, poverty, hunger, hatred, and racism? We all want to think that our children will mirror our views, our lifestyles, and our own morality. Yet, there's the many outside influences that we cannot control. Children are inquisitive. They are like little sponges soaking up everything, everywhere about everyone. They miss little, retain all.

Over the past couple of weeks, I came across someone on the Internet. She is a school teacher that is trying to not only teach children, but to impress upon them a sense of worth in our society. We emailed briefly and she told me of the project that her class had completed not long ago. It truly intrigued me. I'd often had visions of what it would be like to hear the voices of a classroom of children as they sang out with the words "we shall be free."

What I'd not stopped to consider was HOW the children felt when they would sing the song? Would they have visions in their heads just like we adults? Would they ever be able to really comprehend the message of a song like "We Shall Be Free?"

Comprehend it? I think the children understand that song better than some of us adults! Maybe we could really learn a little about the song, ourselves, and our world if we stopped to ask them to explain it to us.

This teacher shared her class project with me. It is a booklet that the children made the illustrations for. It was done as a project surrounding the holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The teacher chose instead of teaching his biography, to attempt to teach Dr. King's message. I have to say, she did her job well. The book is aptly titled, "We Shall Be Free." This work came from a third grade class in middle America. The name of the school, the teacher, and the students, well, let's just say they shall remain nameless. They are just some of God's special angels who show us how to live, how to give, and what dreams are all about. I don't want to name them but I did seek permission from the teacher and her class before I set about writing this column.

I can begin by telling you that it was a far from normal day around here. Things had been unusually chaotic, even for us! I was tired, irritable, discontent with the way my days had gone lately. I was missing my friends, missing the magic, and I had really forgotten what the important things were in my life. I'd sought some comfort in the music and even that wasn't seeming to reach that place inside of me that it always does. I was longing for some calm, some quiet, some relaxation, and some time for my memories to transport me to somewhere else for a while. I was sad, angry, and taking a lot of things in my life for granted. I wasn't very happy with me that day. Then, my mailman knocked on the door with a package.

Amidst all the craziness that was filling my house, I came into my little space. I sat on the floor in my little corner of Garthdom. I sent my kids and my husband outside, I blocked out the noise of the day, and I opened a package. I found a note from a teacher explaining how each verse of "We Shall Be Free" was taken apart by the children in her class and what it meant to them. She didn't tell the children that she was relating to them the words of a song till the project was completed. Then, they learned to sing the song as she flipped the pages in the book and their own images became one with the words. I felt the chaos disappear...I felt a sense of calm for the first time in days...and I picked up the children's book project and I began to read.

From the opening statement, "this ain't coming from no prophet, just an ordinary class" I knew that something very unique and special had been placed into my hands and in my care. In my mind, I could hear Garth, just as strong and steadfast as ever singing the words as I turned the book, page by page. But, no longer did I see what my visions of the song meant. I was seeing this song through the eyes of the children. Truly, I have never seen it so clearly, so strongly, so honestly, so frankly, and with such truth. I will never hear that song again my way. From the moment I opened this book, I will forever see this song through the eyes of those children.

"When I close my eyes I see, the way this world shall be, when we all walk hand in hand." Children, happy children, carefree, playing, smiling, trusting, full of innocence.

"When the last child cries for a crust of bread," a sunny sky, green grass and flowers, but with three hungry children, yet they still smile in hope.

"When the last man dies for just words that he says," a man on a wire, preparing to take his life, and underneath him, a man with a blanket, there to catch him when he falls.

"When there's shelter over the poorest head," two children of different races, both homeless, in a park, and crying.

"We shall be free." A child laying dying surrounded by two children watching it on television.

"When the last thing we notice is the color of skin," a man, shackled, in a ball and chains, being beaten.

"And the first thing we look for, is the beauty within," two people of different races, different sizes, different hair, different eyes, different weights and heights, walking in a beautiful park, holding hands, going to sit on a bench.

"When the skies and the oceans are clean again," an interracial couple, policeman, and two small children all sailing on boats in the ocean trying to clean up the water.

"We shall be free." A blue clear sky, sunshine, children of different races, shapes, sexes, and sizes, all playing together, smiling, and happy.

"We shall be free. We shall be free! Stand straight, walk proud, cause we shall be free." A church, a house of worship, people of different races are inside.

"When we're free to love anyone we choose," a couple, one white, one black, holding hands and smiling.

"When this world's big enough for all different views," one man lying on the ground, bleeding from his heart, while another stands beside him pointing a smoking gun.

"When we all can worship from our own kind of pew," a little girl going into her own place of worship.

"Then we shall be free." A circular sign, inside is the word WAR with a line painted through it, surrounding it are flags from the United States and other countries.

"We shall be free." A man, talking to other people on a bridge between two hills, with the sun shining down and he is proclaiming freedom.

"We shall be free." A man with a little girl and a little boy, green trees, sunshine, birds, blue skies, they are all happy and smiling and enjoying peace.

"Have a little faith," a beautiful Church open to all.

"We shall be free!" A church full of nameless faces all united as one.

"And when money talks for the very last time," children's faces but all of them, are much smaller than the monetary bills that surround them.

"And nobody walks a step behind," a sun, beaming down its rays upon two groups of people, all walking equally in its light.

"When there's only one race and that's mankind," a world, our world, and around it, are children of every color, boys and girls, from every country, all united, holding hands and smiling.

"We shall be free." A line of children, all different, unique, holding hands.

"We shall be free." Our world, our people, and its surrounded by the planets in our solar system, but only our planet has a people united, hand in hand.

"We shall be free." A mother watching over her dying child reaching for a blanket.

"Walk proud." The United States of America's flag, flying high, surrounded by children and their parents.

"We shall be free." Two people on a boat, one with some physical differences, but still happy and accepted by the other.

"We shall be free." A couple, just married, smiling and beginning a new life together.

"We shall be free." Two signs, one says blacks, one says whites, both with a line drawn through them, a sign in the middle that says everyone.

"We shall be free." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as he stands proclaiming, "I have a dream."

"We shall be free." Two men playing basketball together, one black, one white, reaching out to one another.

"We shall be free." A black child going into a restaurant with a sign hanging on the door that welcomes both black and white people.

Stark images. Some that disturbed me with their violence. Some that uplifted me with their hope. But, all the images I saw as I flipped the pages of the book and as the sounds of the children voices filled my head, it overwhelmed me. I felt myself wiping away a tear. Then, page after page, the tears washed over me. I think for the first time, I really began to understand that song. It took a classroom of third graders, from a school miles away, a teacher's patience and willingness to teach a dream, and this chaotic time in my life for me to learn this lesson. This teacher did more than teach her class, she taught me too.

I thought back to the time when Garth first talked about the writing of the song and the story behind it. He and Stephanie Davis both were quite overwhelmed with the LA riots after the trial for the policemen in the beating of Rodney King. I remember watching it on television and the words of Rodney King as he said "why can't we all just get along?" Why indeed?

The children certainly get it. Why can't we as adults? Maybe, we all need to look inside of ourselves and recapture some of that lost innocence. We need to search our hearts for that lost trust in our fellowman. We need to become as children again ourselves and regain that spirit, that fire, that zest that once burned so brightly in our eyes.

During the concerts, I've stood and felt this awesome sense of unity as Garth sang that song. "We shall be free" echoing from the voices of thousands of strangers, who for a few brief minutes, not only sang that song, but lived that song, felt that song, believed every word of that song. Why for only a few brief minutes?

I think now of Garth's work to begin and maintain a charity for the children. My heart turns to the Touch Em All Foundation where dreams will be brought and made into reality. I think of these children in this classroom who someday may forget these words and be on the wrong end of one of those smoking guns. I think of the children who will walk that wire, and those who sadly will fall...with no one to catch them. Each child is an opportunity for good and right and fairness. Each child is a gift that we all have, whether they are ours or someone else's. When will we teach them "We Shall Be Free?"

We all have moments of awakening when we know that our lives have been changed in some way. Sometimes big and sometimes small, but changed for the better. By sharing this book with me, this teacher and her classroom of precious boys and girls with their honesty about their world have changed mine.

Now, when I find myself sitting in an arena with a thousand other people, my visions during "We Shall Be Free" will be the visions of these children. Today, I make a solemn vow to those children and to their teacher. Somehow, someway, this book will be placed in the hands of Garth Brooks. Hopefully, he will share it with Stephanie Davis, the song's co-writer. I truly think that it could be given no greater award.

"We Shall Be Free" is a message song. It speaks to one of the deepest parts of my heart. Now, however, that voice is more childlike. It is truly "heart music." Meant to provoke, inspire, gratify. If every singer finds its song, and every song finds its home, maybe, just maybe, this song has found its voice. It's in the voice of our children, our future. What greater hope than that can we all have?

This column is dedicated to Stephanie Davis and Garth Brooks, may this song be sung forever, and to a third grade class and their teacher, for a lesson I will never forget.