First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis

Really, What IS This Spirituality Stuff?

Song: "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel?"

I. Hope and yearning

The first thing about spirituality is that it comes in an idiom, a particular package, like language. You cannot speak language in general; you must speak *a* language - and anyone who speaks more than one language understands that each one has its own unique structure and expressiveness, though each can be used to communicate the same essential human experiences. This morning, the chorus is sharing with us their annual exploration of the particular idiom of historical and contemporary black spirituals, a form of music that expresses and celebrates the collective experience of those who were brought to this country as slaves, and their descendants. As an oppressed cultural minority, this community struggled for justice, solidarity, and to preserve an enduring hope for a better future. That struggle found its idiom in the biblical tradition imposed by dominant European culture - an idiom which the black community adopted and transformed to serve its own purposes and speak to its own experience. Today we recognize in that musical language the profound expression of universal human experience; the power of the spirit. Through it, we seek to explore the meaning of our own experience of the world, our own longings for justice and visions of a better world.

From its earliest expressions in Egyptian mythology and ancient Greek myths, the meaning of being human in the world has often been expressed in the metaphor of a journey. While its destination may be uncertain, life is a path, an unfolding adventure, that calls upon the human spirit to exhibit certain strengths if it is to survive and flourish and follow its destiny. For the culture in which the tradition of the black spiritual was created, the image of the journey had a very literal meaning as well, for all slaves lived their lives in the awareness that the land of freedom existed, if only they could get there. It was, of course, a long, arduous, and dangerous road, that could end in disaster if the attempt to escape were unsuccessful. And yet, the promise of liberty, dignity and justice - the possibility to be 'free at last' - was a compelling vision that must have tugged at the mind and heart every waking hour. Whether a particular individual ever attempted it or not, the ideas of escape, and journey, and freedom, became shaping images for the lives of slaves, woven into their music and their unique spiritual vocabulary.

As they made their own the Biblical texts imposed upon them by their white masters, the enslaved blacks found a collection of powerful images and promises speaking to their experience of oppression. The old testament stories of Israel in captivity, both as slaves in Egypt and as exiles in Babylon, showed that the African slaves were not alone in their hardship, and that even the white man's god was a god of liberation, offering a promised land of freedom. The psychedelic images from the book of Revelation came to represent the inexpressible glory of the city where the tables would be turned and true righteousness would be established, the community of justice and joy. Using these stories and images, woven into the style of their African musical heritages, the slave communities created a living culture around song; working songs, songs of lament, and longing, songs of comfort, encouragement, and celebration - songs of the human spirit, and its journey through life. The promised land of freedom became not only the free nation of Canada, but the place of integrity and wholeness, when we are true to ourselves in the fullness of the person each of us is meant to be. The River Jordan came to represent not only the literal rivers that marked the borders between slave states and free ones, but the rivers of risk, fear, and change that we all must cross in life, if we want to grow, or accomplish something meaningful. The city of Zion, or Jerusalem, is not just the place of elementary equality, where no one is a slave, but the possible human community of genuine love and kinship that we might one day build together. These songs remain powerful and evocative today precisely because they speak to the spirit on so many levels, and because the deepest longings and promises that they express have not yet been fulfilled in our hearts.

The journey begins, whether it is the literal journey out of the land of slavery, or the journey of the spirit, with the audacity to hope for something better. This is the message of "Didn't my lord deliver Daniel?" - why not every man? If miracles can happen, if other people can be free, why not for me? Why not for us? Why shouldn't we be free, as much as the next person? If divine justice has any power, if inalienable human rights exist at all, then I, too, can lay claim to them. It is the movement away from despair, the rejection of the temptation to just go along with things the way they have always been, to yield passively to the status quo - all our old addictions and denials and selling out. Something else IS possible; wasn't Daniel in worse trouble in the lion's den than I am, and didn't he escape? Then why not every man? Why not me?

Once we have made the spiritual decision not to give in to oppression and despair, something begins to tug at our hearts, some almost indescribably beautiful vision of a better life and a better way. We may not be able to articulate it, or find it on the map, but we know that the longing is going change us profoundly, that we will have to find the courage to cross seemingly insurmountable barriers. Perhaps, if you know in advance everything that will be required of you on the journey toward wholeness and fulfillment, you might draw back, and settle again into listless acceptance. But something is still calling; something sweetly insistent, the better person that I have always really wanted to be, the pilgrimage that will take me I know not where, away from what I thought was home, across the deep rivers. ** The spirit's journey has its source in the heart's yearning, a nameless, poignant longing that forever calls us to leave the past behind, and cross over into unknown possibility.

Song: "Deep River"

II. Vision and excitement

When the longing of the heart has fully seized you, and you have yielded to its distant promise and assented to begin the journey, there comes a moment of energy and excitement. Longings begin to translate themselves into visions and possibilities, and the spirit prepares for something new. Many of songs of slavery have this theme of readiness, and one of the popular new testament passages in the black community was Jesus's somewhat obscure and puzzling parable of the bridesmaids, who were waiting for the delayed arrival of the wedding party when some of them allowed their lamps to go out for lack of extra fuel. Lamplight was a very tangible communication device to the slaves; a lamp in the window could signal a way station on the underground railroad escape route, or a light in a cabin or in the woods could let others know of danger, or a meeting place, or that a leader was near to guide those who going to try to escape. Being prepared could mean the difference between a successful run to freedom, and being recaptured and harshly punished, or perishing on the journey. Being ready also has to do with gathering up your courage, knowing that when the chance comes that could change your life, whatever it is, you will seize it and not hesitate. For the slave communities, songs also were signaling devices; information could be broadcast through singing that to the ears of the dominant culture sounded merely pious and biblical, but in reality was a call to those who were prepared to take the risk that the opportunity to flee was at hand. "To walk in Jerusalem just like John" was a reference to the exiled early Christian author of the new testatment book of Revelation, who on his stony island prison beheld visions of a heavenly city. Out of oppression and suffering the human imagination can construct worlds of shining possibility; even those slaves who could not run, could still 'walk in Jerusalem just like John', in their minds' eye.

Song: "I want to be ready"

Offertory:

Perhaps the most famously encrypted of all the slavery songs we know today is "Follow the Drinking Gourd." Legend has it that a white itinerant carpenter named Peg Leg Joe who had lost one leg as a sailor, traveled from plantation to plantation throughout Alabama and Mississippi, teaching this song to the slaves among whom he worked. It instructs those who wanted to escape to begin their journey in late winter - "when the sun comes back and the first quail calls" - because it would take them most of a year to work their way to the crossing of the Ohio river, and that was easiest to accomplish the following winter, when the water had again frozen. Special markings carved into dead trees along the river routes - which would have been easy for Joe to demonstrate and then destroy as he worked - served as directional signs. By following the north star - the 'drinking gourd' of the big dipper - along the banks of the Tombigbee river to its headwaters, the escapees could reach the Tennessee river 'between two hills on the other side', where they could look for a guide from the underground railroad who would lead them to and across the Ohio, and through the northern states to Canada. As daunting as it must have been to think of spending an entire year on the run as a hunted fugitive, it is estimated that between 60,000 and 100,000 slaves successfully escaped through the work of the railroad, and this does not count those who tried and failed. So strong is the human spirit's will to be free. The escaping slaves of course risked everything, including their lives, in a desperate gamble for freedom, but the underground railroad could not have been as effective as it was without the dedicated participation and contributions of those white allies in both the south and the free states, who also believed that slavery was indefensibly wrong. We like to think of ourselves as their heirs; may the courage and generosity that informed their commitment be also in us, and make us as dedicated to justice in our day as they were in theirs. In this aspiration, this morning's offering in support of the work of this society will now be received.

Song: "Follow the Drinking Gourd"

III. Endurance and confidence

The human spirit has two essential manifestations; one is the ability to endure, the other, the capacity to rejoice. What keeps us going in the face of adversity, danger, oppression, sorrow, and suffering draws upon the strength to persever, and the power to imagine ways in which our lives and the world might be different. However, life would be a grim business if this were all there was to it; in order to be spiritually healthy, we must also affirm and cultivate our deepest experiences of joy. Indeed, true wisdom understands that the two of these go hand in hand; that the more people we love deeply, the more ideas and projects we care about, the greater risk of loss and suffering we take, should anything go wrong. And yet, the person of large spirit chooses to embrace that risk, because that is the experience of life. By the same token, those who have suffered profoundly, if they have opened themselves to the pain and grown from it, know that their ability to recognize and receive joy is increased in the same degree. The music of slavery knows this well; it can plumb the darkest valleys of human misery, injustice, and aloneness, but it can also soar to the heights of gladness and confidence. Once the adventure of the spirit is begun, and the chains of the past left behind, there is no time for complaint. Then we must encourage ourselves and one another with songs of hope, with anticipation of what might yet be, and of our determination to see the journey through. Friends and family separated by the arbitrary cruelties of slavery carried their love and memories with them; even the community of those left behind could sing about being 'on the way', and lift up their hopes for the ones who had actually set forth toward the promise of liberty, traveling with them in imagination, and wishing them safety, good speed, and arrival at last in 'freedom land.' Now we don't want to let the choir members have all the fun - or do all the work, depending on how you look at it - so let's please turn to hymn number 116, and help them out with the joy and encouragement part.

Song: "I'm On My Way"

IV. Comfort and celebration

The concept of home is a paradoxical one within the metaphor of the spiritual journey. Is 'home' the place we started from, what we left behind, the old ways that were familiar before we set out on the adventure of freedom and new life? Or is home a place that we have never seen yet, the end of the journey that we are headed for; a place where we have always somehow really belonged, but that may take everything we have to get there? Some of the most evocative images of the black spiritual tradition speak of the loneliness and deep weariness of feeling that we are "a long way from home," - on either end. To be headed toward the promise of 'freedom land', that new city of Zion with streets of gold where justice and righteousness shall rule is certainly exciting, but when the journey starts, it isn't the reassurance and rest of home. A process is required; the kind of maturing wisdom that is only earned by daring some great risks in the service of one's own integrity, to come to recognize what home would really be for the new person you have become. You've got to cross the deep river, with all its fears and separations; you have to learn to trust your own ability to follow the drinking gourd, and also to trust those true helpers who come to show you the way. As a society of diverse people - the children of former slaves, and the children of former slave owners, as Martin Luther King once called us - we have not yet fully come home, to the place where justice and mercy, kinship and compassion are truly established in our common life. Slavery may be a thing of the past in our land, but oppression is not, and that is why these songs continue to be sung - and to be written, in modern times. The vision remains before us; it is our shared heritage now. If anybody asks where we want to go, it is there - up yonder; to the mountain top, the place that we have seen in our dreams, the community of human dignity and equality that is the only place now that we can ever, all, truly be at home.

Song: "I'm Goin' Up A Yonder"

Closing:

In the end, the human spirit is not a material entity, like a liver or a finger nail. Rather, like a neutrino, like love or joy, we can only point to the traces left by its passing, and so infer where it has been at work. Spirituality is our awareness of that presence and that work; the capacity for endurance that sustains us when it might have been rational to give up; the stubborn courage that will not bow to wrongful power, however expedient, as well as the deeply founded joy that is always ready to find comfort and cause for celebration in the beauties of life, no matter how interwoven into our sorrows. Spirituality is the self-awareness and discipline that knows how to find the still calm center within one's own being, even when the world seems to be spinning out of control, and the unshakeable conviction that the goodness we hunger for is within our reach, and that it matters what we love. It is this conviction that gives a special resonance to the word Halleluia in the vocabulary of the black spiritual. From the old testament Hebrew for 'praise god,' it came to have an expanded and deepened sense of affirmation even in the face of struggle. Halleluia functions as both a statement and a summons, an expression of rejoicing in the moment, but also a more profound conviction that joy and goodness lie at the heart of life even when they are least visible. There will always be storms, and nights will be dark, and long, and filled with fear - and yet, if we can be strong, the morning light will appear, the storm will pass over, and the journey goes on. In the most hideous suffering of their oppression, the slaves survived, and endured, and even found joy and meaning for their lives, in the affirmation that a better world was possible, and a better day was coming. Much of what they hungered for has been accomplished, and much remains yet to be done. We are on this journey together, you and I, still seeking that promised land of kinship and justice, the city of Zion where all shall walk in freedom. We learn from those who came before us, and marked the way in part with their tears, that it helps if you sing as you go. The human spirit is nourished in many ways; these ancestors left us the story of their struggles and their courage, their unyielding witness of what was right, and their will to be free, and their songs. May we cherish that inheritance, and make it fruitful in the work and love of our own lives. Halleluia.

Song: "The Storm Is Passing Over"

Opening words:

Welcome. This morning begins the annual celebration of black history month

Across our national culture,

And we turn again to the vocabulary of music to trace out a living connection

Between the spirit of those who survived the centuries of slavery and oppression,

And our own journeys of courage and transformation in today's world.

Here in this community of memory and promise,

We cherish the stories of those who were faithful to their ideals,

And who, when all else was stolen from them,

Could not be robbed of their inherent worth and dignity,

But stood steadfast in their conviction of justice and human equality.

Generation after generation, great souls have arisen who would not be moved

From the courageous vision and persistent effort toward authentic freedom

For all people.

In their words and deeds, the human spirit glows brightly;

In their struggles and sacrifices, we learn the power of what we all might dream and do.

Here in this time of recollection and renewal, may our own spirits be refreshed,

And our own vision renewed

So that we might dedicate ourselves again to the work of justice, the principles of equality,

And the promise of freedom.

Enter in to this celebration of courage and endurance, of the hopes and yearnings that touch all human hearts, and make us truly brothers and sisters of one another.

May the flame of this chalice be to us the light of freedom

And the heritage of a larger faith;

A beacon of reason and a signal to all who wander lost,

That here gathers a community where all are welcome,

Where truth is sought,

And the highest aspirations of the human spirit are nourished.

Words of black musician Paul Robeson; 462