Toward the end of Sunday service, the Minister asked,
How many of you have forgiven your enemies?”
80% of the congregation held up their hands.
The Minister asked his question again.
All responded this time, except one small elderly lady.
“Mrs. Neely? Are you willing to forgive your enemies?”
“I don’t have any”, she replied, smiling sweetly.
“Mrs. Neely, that is very unusual. How old are you?”
“Ninety-eight”, she replied.
“Oh, Mrs. Neely, would you please come down front & tell us how
a person can live ninety-eight years & not have an enemy in the world?”
The little sweetheart of a lady tottered down the aisle,
faced the congregation, and said:
“I outlived the b*****ds”.
Sometimes resilience comes after recognizing that there are people who don’t care about you, people and forces intent on oppressing you, holding you back, putting you down, exploiting you and taking from you what you have. Your being says “No!” You persist in finding a way when none seems possible. From struggle, your soul calls out to power greater than your own.
Do my words reflect anything about Black resilience? What has enabled African Americans to survive and thrive? What do I know? I’m white. My perceptions grow out of what I have learned and imagined. I know that, as the hymn says, “there is more truth somewhere, and I’m going to keep on ’til I find it.” I trust you to join me in eagerness to learn from African American culture and wisdom. I pray that this effort will support the spiritual growth we seek.
When I began planning this service, a friend suggested I watch a PBS documentary, “The Black Church”, which was written and produced by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. A Black clergy woman in the film, stated that the Black church emerged from the struggle for freedom. It became a driving force in African American lives and culture. It has certainly been a contributor to what we will discuss today, Black resilience.
My view and appreciation of the Black church stems from my experience of Judaism. It has been said “For more than 5000 years Jews have kept the Sabbath. It’s the other way around. For more than 5000 years, Shabbat (the sabbath) has kept the Jews.”*
The force, flow and sustaining power that has kept Jews alive is not just the sabbath, not just a day of rest and worship. There is a life force present in Jewish religion and Jewish culture. One of things that has kept me connected is my love of Jewish music and chanting. Niggunim, Jewish melodies, live inside me. They play in and through me enabling me to remain in the flow of Life.
I believe that there is something similarly powerful, sustaining & inspiring in African American history. Africans brought to this continent the power of rhythms and melodies that predate their capture and enslavement at the hands of Europeans. I imagine that the treasure that was their music and culture enabled some to survive the kidnapping, cruel voyage and brutal enslavement. I believe that African Americans kept and added to their cultural inheritance so that it sustained them and enabled them to make astounding and profound contributions to American culture and life.
African American spirit and genius created unique expressions and experiences of Christianity. Into the Christianity given or forced upon them, they infused more traditional and familiar religious practices of the Igbo, Yoruba, Ba’Hai or Zulu religions. Their creativity seems to me a rejection and defiance of the oppression that tried to deny their humanity and dignity. Their music expressed their yearning and hope for deliverance. It expressed the faith of their ancestors, as well as the religious tenets of their captors. The music that emerged from them has been a force for survival.
The first wave of African American music has been called slave songs or folk music. In and through varied experiences of Christianity, came powerful, miraculous, and unique music called spirituals or Black gospel music. In time African American musicians created the blues, jazz, soul, Motown, funk, disco, hip hop, rap. All of American pop music, and most of American culture, has been influenced by Black genius. Music created by and for African Americans has inspired music, art and cultural around the globe. It has been a life serving force of uplifting for everyone the world over.
My ideas on Black church, Black music, and Black resilience crystallized when I read an article entitled “When Dvorak went to Iowa to meet God.” It pushed me further to consider how the Black church, culture and music have helped cultivate Black resilience.
Nathan Beacom, the author of the article, described the struggles experienced by Dvorak while he was living in America. He missed Czechoslovakia terribly. In Iowa, the open spaces moved him, and enabled him to acknowledge the great sadness within himself. He formed a quality of connection through new friendships, which helped him to hold perhaps even savor the tension of the beauty, sadness, longing, and pain inside himself. It helped him understand America. These tensions appeared in his music and in his reflections on American music, particularly as he studied Native American and African American music. He found in them both something that resonated with his own experience of missing his home, and recognized at their core the existential trauma of being torn from that home.
Dvorak wrote: ” Almost by definition slaves in the south were exiles – robbed, in one way or another, of their rightful homes. This is true even for those born into slavery. To be treated as property is always an alienation.”
Black church and black music were created with a spirit that overcame the brutal system that stripped them of their home, country, their lives and families, their communities and livelihoods, their spouses, and even their children. The Black church was created by people who had no rights and no possessions, but their worship!! Their worship carried the theology of liberation and hope, and their powerful and inspired music created a priceless possession and a kind of home for themselves to which they could return again and again for nourishment and sustaining strength. Now, members of Black churches today might correct me and say that God created a way for them, created a spiritual home for them. “He made a way out of no way.” Either way, the Black church gave a sense of belonging to people of the African diaspora. The church has been and continues to be for many a salve -or maybe a tourniquet -a lifesaving intervention for people continually assaulted by generations of white supremacy and violence.
Several years back at SWUUSI (our Southwest UU summer institute), I was helping to lead worship and was introducing a Niggun, a wordless Jewish melody. I was trying to provide a framework for understanding the prayer tradition of Niggunim. I wanted it to be accessible to humanists and atheists. I spoke of estrangement and longing, because I believe everyone experiences these at some point in our lives. Sometimes we are estranged from family, or from a spouse, a community, even from ourselves. At times, we may feel such alienation that we lose our sense of meaning and purpose for living. We may long for connection, reconciliation, or the healing of estrangement. Prayer, I said, could be understood as the yearning that comes from inside us and extends outwardly in hope of connection.
Black thriving and resilience has to do with connection and how it has been achieved and maintained, in spite of everything. There has been a culturally inherited connection to the pulse of the divine life force. Perhaps we can say that African Americans move to generational rhythms. Their spirit and humanity have continued reaching for life, reaching for justice, reaching for hope.
The genius and profound influence of African Americans has never been properly acknowledged or credited by white America. To do so would shatter the lie that the owning class white men were the ones who generated this country’s wealth. To do so would be to shatter the myth of white supremacy, to expose the continuation of traditions and structures that require poverty. To do so would be to expose how a white minority controls access to resources that belong to all the Earth’s inhabitants, of whom Black and indigenous people are actually the majority.
Did I hear somebody say, “preach”? When a member of a Black church calls out “preach!” they are authorizing, we might say anointing, the preacher to give the good news and to address the reality of people and forces intent on doing harm. Long before they could preach the evil of racism, Black preachers told the Exodus story. African Americans embraced the story of Moses directed by God to tell Pharoah, “Let my people go!” They could possess as sacred story, God leading the Hebrews out of slavery!
Enslaved African Americans received a story of a divine Jesus, and the brutality laid upon him. The Black church spoke and continues to speak of redemption, liberation and coming glory. The church has been a place of hope for many. It has addressed and acknowledged the reality of inflicted pain. To this day, preachers like the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II use Bible stories to draw parallels to modern day haters and hate. He calls out those who can’t stand for Black humanity, dignity, and brilliance to be recognized. Millions of African Americans have experienced the church as an antidote to the poisonous hatred of white society.
Am I speaking clearly? I haven’t heard many Amens! Perhaps because this type of religion may make some of us feel uncomfortable. We tend to want our ministers to be ministers, not preachers. We are an intellectual bunch, you know? We cherish our emphasis on reason and wish to be above emotional appeals. I can appreciate that, knowing that strong emotions – especially fear and hatred – can lead us to make foolish choices. I appreciate that our religion asks us to think about things!
And yet I would caution us not to get caught in the current that assumes and asserts superiority of European culture. Isn’t it ironic how often white people have talked about “the angry Black person”, when for over 400 years, Black people have been the targets of white hatred and anger? Every advance made by Black people has been met with a violent backlash from whites.
Today, we celebrate the unyielding resilience of African-American people and culture!
Our UU denomination remains predominantly white. Because we know history, this gives us concern. But guilt won’t bridge cultural differences. We can be proud to be part of a prophetic tradition that has so often been a voice for inclusion and dignity. We can be proud of our theological tradition that emphasizes, models, and emulates Jesus’ care and advocacy for the marginalized and oppressed.
Maybe we can empathize with conservative friends who want to see schools help children to have pride in America. However, people are waging an attack on liberal education and trying to criminalize the teaching of the systemic nature of racism, it’s time to speak out!
I think we understand what this attempt to criminalize the teaching of systemic racism is all about. White supremacists don’t want people to know history. If citizens learned history, demagoguery and criminal grabs for power would be seen for what they are. The anti-woke revolution would be seen in a historical context as another violent attempt to enforce a system of discrimination where privilege goes to whites.
Our liberal tradition calls us to find ways to transform societal structures to enable well-being and prosperity for everyone. Therefore, it also asks us to critically examine the systems which have given us privilege. Increasingly UUS are becoming willing to look within ourselves, to see where we carry systems of oppression, perhaps without even realizing it. We are called as Unitarian Universalists to become willing to grow along spiritual lines.
For these tasks, we can learn from Black Resilience the importance of keeping the faith. What might this mean for us? In a time when our nation’s libraries and education system are under attack, how much more is our commitment needed to public education?! If the teaching of real history is banned, how can we make sure that there is a place where real history is taught our children? How can we champion critical thinking skills that are so needed now? How can we effectively expose the anti-democratic agenda of the extreme right.
We can humbly admit that we have a lot to learn, such as learning to recognize when violence is being promoted and aimed at certain groups of our population. We can find ways to include Black people in our white lives. We can read, and listen, and amplify Black voices, while we educate ourselves about the nuances of racism and how we are all conditioned to participate in white supremacy.
We can do what’s needed to stay in it for the long haul with adequate self-care and community care. We can learn from Black resilience and we can develop our own.
Make it be so!
XXXXX
Toward the end of Sunday service, the Minister asked, ‘How many of you
have forgiven your enemies?’
80% held up their hands.
The Minister then repeated his question.
All responded this time, except one small elderly lady.
‘Mrs. Neely?’; ‘Are you not willing to forgive your enemies?’
I don’t have any.’ She replied, smiling sweetly.
‘Mrs. Neely, that is very unusual. How old are you?’
‘Ninety-eight.’ she replied.
‘Oh, Mrs. Neely, would you please come down in front & tell us all how
a person can live ninety-eight years & not have an enemy in the world?’
The little sweetheart of a lady tottered down the aisle,
faced the congregation, and said:
‘I outlived the bastards.’
Sometimes resilience comes after recognizing that there are people, and forces who don’t care about you, who are intent to oppress you, hold you back, put you down, exploit you and take from you what you have. Resilience sometimes emerges when everything in you says “No!” and your will to survive swells. It grows as you struggle, and reach for a way when none seems possible. Your soul summons and calls upon power greater than your own. With a determination to never turn back, you find resilience because you persist!
Do my words describe something reflective of the experience of Africans kidnapped and enslaved and the generations of African Americans who’ve come after them? I cannot say. My description grows from my experiences; what I’ve lived, learned and imagined. I know that “there is more truth somewhere, and I’m going to keep on til I find it.” (hymn lyric). Today we are turning to African American History and culture. Let us affirm our willingness to learn. I am excited to preach! I know you will be with me today.
African Americans have survived the brutalities of a Euro dominated society for over four hundred years. Despite oppression African Americans have managed to thrive to make priceless and profound contributions to American culture. Let us consider and celebrate this amazing truth!
Soon after choosing this topic, a friend suggested I watch a PBS documentary. “The Black Church” was written and produced by Henry Louis Gates Jr. A woman, one of many African American clergy Gates interviewed stated that the black “church emerged from the struggle for freedom.” It became a driving force in African American lives and culture. Certainly a major contributor to Black Resilience.
My appreciation and perspective on black church has been influenced by growing up Jewish, from my experience of Judaism. A variation of famous quotation of Ahad Ha’am taught me something about resilience and religion. It goes: “Some say that Jews have kept the sabbath for more than 5000 years, but it’s the other way around. For more than 5000 years, Shabbat, the sabbath has kept the Jews. The sustaining momentum comes from more than the Jewish day of rest and worship. There is a force present in Jewish culture as well as Jewish religion. One of the key things that has kept me connected to a Jewish way of life is the music and chanting. Niggunim, Jewish melodies live inside me. They sing to me and through me. They give me strength, and tune me to life flowing in and around me.
I imagine that African American religions, spirituality and culture have something similar. I know that I’ve often experienced something uplifting in African American music, especially in the music that grew out of the Black Church. It seems that the music of the Black Church, and much of the music that grew from it have been a source of upliftment for African Americans and the entire world.
One of the many songs that I cherish from albums by “Sound of Blackness,” is called “The Drum.” It pays homage to the power of the rhythms carried from Africa to America. In it the people say “we are the drum,” and “Across the history of this vast continent of countries, the drum speaks. Africans brought to this continent the power of rhythms and melodies that were theirs long before they were captured, enslaved and brought to this continent. Surely this rich inheritance helped African Americans survive the centuries of enslavement!
Ripped from Africa and new generations were born in America. From them came new songs, new music. Into the Christianity “given” them, they forged their spirit and experience to create a unique expression of Christianity. The songs of praise and worship they composed have continued in vibrance to be shared generation after generation. Perhaps this music was written and born in defiance of people and a system that denied their humanity. The music expressed yearning and hope for deliverance. This music helped them survive blows, unimaginable indignities, injustice and oppression.
The music of Africans and next generations became known in white culture as slave songs. This folk music led to music of the Black church, spirituals, Black gospel music. Later African American musicians created the blues, jazz, rnb, rock n roll, soul, Motown, funk, disco, hip hop, rap. All of American pop music and most of American culture has been shaped by Black genius. African American music has inspired people all over the world!
My ideas on Black Church, Black music and Black resilience, crystallized when I read an article titled “When Dvorak went to Iowa to meet God.” It pushed me further to consider how Black Church, culture and music have helped cultivate Black resilience.
Nathan Beacom, the author of the article, described some struggles experienced by Dvorak while he was living in America, and the way Dvorak held tensions inside himself that enabled him to understand things about our nation. Dvorak missed Czechoslovakia, his home badly. In Iowa, the open spaces moved him and enabled him to the sadness in him. He formed a quality of connection in friendships made in Iowa. This helped him to hold the tension, beauty, sadness, longing, and pain inside himself and in our country. These tensions came out in his music and in his reflections on American music. He studied and both Native American and African American music. He found in them something that resonated with his own experience of missing home.
He saw at the core of Native and African experience, people torn from their home. Dvorak wrote: “ Almost by definition slaves in the south were exiles – robbed, in one way or another, of their rightful homes. This is true even for those born into slavery. To be treated as property is always an alienation.”
Black Christianity church and black music was created with a spirit that overcame the brutal system that stripped them of their home, their families and so much more. The Black Church was created by a people who had no rights and no possessions. Black people developed unique forms of worship that carried a theology of liberation and hope, powerful and inspired music. By doing so, they gave to themselves priceless gifts including having something they could call home. Members of black churches would likely correct me and say that “God made a way out of no way.” He created for them a spiritual home.” The black church gave a sense of belonging to people in diaspora. The church has been a salve or maybe a tourniquet, a lifesaving intervention for people assaulted by generations of white racism and violence.
Several years back I was leading worship at the SWUUSI (summer institute). I was introducing a Niggun, a wordless Jewish melody. I was trying to provide a framework for understanding the prayer tradition of Niggunim. I wanted it to be accessible to humanists and atheists. I spoke of estrangement and longing. I believe everyone experiences these. Sometimes we are estranged from family, from a spouse, a community, even from ourselves. At times, we may feel such alienation that we lose our sense of meaning and purpose in living.
All of us know longing. We long for connection, for reconciliation or healing of estrangement. I explained that prayer could be understood as the yearning that comes from inside of us and extends outward in hope of connection.
I imagine Black thriving and resilience as having to do with connection and how it has been achieved. African Americans step to inherited rhythms. There has been a culturally inherited connection to the pulse of the divine life force. Their spirit and humanity have continued reaching for life, reaching for justice, reaching for hope.
The genius and profound influence of African Americans has never been properly acknowledged or credited by white America. To do so would shatter the lie that the owning class white men were the ones who generated this country’s wealth. To do so would be to shatter the myth of white supremacy. To do so would be to expose the continuation of traditions and structures that require poverty. To do so would be to expose how an allegedly elite minority control access to resources.
Did I hear somebody say, “preach it!?” When a member of a black church calls out “preach!” they are authorizing or anointing the preacher to give the good news and to address the reality of people and forces intent on doing harm.
And long before they could preach the evil of racism, black preachers could tell the Exodus story. African Americans embraced the story of Moses directed by God to tell Pharoah: “let my people go!” God leading the Hebrews out of slavery became their sacred story.
They also receive the story of a divine savior, Jesus. It’s a story of a divine man mistreated with great brutality. The Black Church took possession of a story of redemption, liberation and coming glory. This church has been a place of hope for many!
Black Church has addressed and acknowledged the reality of inflicted pain. To this day preachers like Rev. William Barber draw from bible stories parallels pointing toward modern day hate and haters. He calls out the truth that some people can’t stand for Black humanity, dignity and brilliance to be recognized. He continues a legacy by which millions of African Americans have experienced an antidote to the poisonous hatred of white society.
Am I speaking this clearly? Well, I wish I could get a witness! (congregation members give affirmation, saying “Preach!”)
This type of religion may make some of us feel uncomfortable. Perhaps we want our ministers to be ministers, not preachers. We are an intellectual bunch, you know? We cherish our emphasis on reason and wish to be above emotional appeals. I can appreciate that, knowing that emotion, especially fear and hatred, can lead us to foolish choices. I appreciate that our religion asks us to think about things!
And yet I would caution us not to get caught in the current of a culture that assumes and asserts superiority of European culture. Isn’t it ironic how often whites have talked about “the angry black?” when for over 400 years, black people have been the targets of white hatred and anger? Every advance made by Black people has been met with a brutal and violent backlash from whites?!
Today, we celebrate the unyielding resilience of African-American people and culture!
To date, the UU denomination remains predominantly white. Because we value inclusion, and because we know history, this gives us concern. But guilt won’t bridge cultural differences. A fare measure of pride may help us. We can be proud to be part of a prophetic tradition that has so often been a voice for inclusion and dignity. We can be proud of our theological tradition that emphasizes, models, and emulates Jesus’ care and advocacy for the marginalized and oppressed.
Maybe we can empathize with conservative friends who want to see schools help children to have pride in America. However, when they attack liberal education, ..and try to criminalize the teaching of the systemic nature of racism, it’s time to speak out!
I think we understand what this attempt to criminalize the teaching of systemic racism is all about. The alt right doesn’t want people to know history. If citizens learned history, demagoguery, criminal grabs for power would be seen for what they are. The anti-woke revolution would be seen in a historical context as another violent white backlash attempting to enforce a system of discrimination where privilege goes to whites and non-whites get neglect, cruelty, and brutality.
Our liberal tradition calls us to find ways to transform societal structures to enable well-being and prosperity for everyone. Therefore, it also asks us to critically examine the systems which have given us privilege. Increasingly UUS are becoming willing to look within ourselves, to see where we carry systems of oppression. In this way, we Unitarian Universalists are being called to become willing to grow along spiritual lines!
For these tasks, we can learn from Black Resilience the importance of keeping the faith. We must talk the talk and walk the walk. In a time when our nation’s libraries and education system are under attack, how much more is our commitment to public education needed?! If the teaching of real history is banned, we can see that there is a place where real history is taught! We can champion critical thinking skills. We can expose the anti-democratic agenda of the extreme right. We need to keep our eyes on the prize.
We can also humbly admit that we have a lot to learn too! We can celebrate Black History. We can do our own inner work! We need to do our own work on ourselves if we hope to live up to the calling of our tradition. We must become aware of how violence is being promoted and aimed. We can do what’s needed to wage peace and justice, and stay in it for the long haul. We can learn from Black resilience and we must develop our own!
Make it so!
*an adaptation of a quotation from Ahad Ha’am
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