The Forty-Day Journey of Promise

Day Twenty-Six: Joyful Sorrow

Note: Welcome to The Journey, our forty-day blog series from MLK Day through the end of Black History Month. We’re learning life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. The series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. To learn more about Beyond the Suffering, including downloading a free chapter, click here.

Life Is Lived in the Minor Key

Enslaved African Americans candidly faced both sorrow and joy. The following well-known slave spiritual illustrates this truth.

Nobody knows the trouble I see,

Nobody knows like Jesus,

Nobody knows the trouble I see,

Glory hallelujah!

A slave who was initially puzzled by the tone of joyful sadness that echoed and re-echoed in spirituals eloquently explains the paradox.

“The old meeting house caught on fire. The spirit was there. Every heart was beating in unison as we turned our minds to God to tell him of our sorrows here below. God saw our need and came to us. I used to wonder what made people shout, but now I don’t. There is a joy on the inside, and it wells up so strong that we can’t keep still. It is fire in the bones. Any time that fire touches a man, he will jump.”

African American Christians understood that life is lived in the minor key. They knew that they could not avoid or evade suffering.

Highest Joy and Deepest Sadness

Frederick Douglass recalls that the spirituals reveal “at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness.” As the slaves reflected on the human condition, they did not demand answers. However they did insist upon candor about suffering and courageous affirmations of joy. The combination often led to a jarring contrast when they juxtaposed earthly suffering and heavenly hope.

An eloquent image of life’s alteration between ups and downs, sorrow and joy, occurs in one of the lesser known verses of Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Had.

One morning I was a-walking down,

Saw some berries a-hanging down,

I pick de berry and I suck de juice,

Just as sweet as de honey in de comb.

Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down,

Sometimes I’m almost on de groun’.

Wild, Sad Strains

Lucy McKim Garrison sent a letter to the November 8, 1862, edition of Dwight’s Journal of Music that powerfully displays this melding of agony and joy found in the spirituals.

“The wild, sad strains tell, as the sufferers themselves never could, of crushed hopes, keen sorrow, and a dull daily misery which covered them as hopelessly as the fog from the rice-swamps. On the other hand, the words breathe a trusting faith in rest in the future—in ‘Canaan’s fair and happy land,’ to which their eyes seem constantly turned.”

Today’s comforters can imitate the model set by enslaved African Americans who knew how to mingle the many moods of faith, who knew how to sing with “tones loud, long, and deep,” and who “breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish.”

Today’s comforters can replicate the soul-stirring honesty of the Psalmists of old who knew how to write psalms of complaint and of celebration, of lament and of longing, who knew how to pour out their souls fully to God.

Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)

1. How well are you able to mingle suffering and joy?

2. How candidly are you able to celebrate God’s goodness even while experiencing life’s “badness”?

Dr. Carter G. Woodson: Father of Black History Month

Enjoy this video tribute to Dr. Carter G. Woodson, known as the Father of Black History Month. Learn more aboout the History of Black History Month.

The Forty-Day Journey of Promise

Day Twenty: The Invisible Institution

Note: Welcome to The Journey, our forty-day blog series from MLK Day through the end of Black History Month. We’re learning life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. The series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. To learn more about Beyond the Suffering, including downloading a free chapter, click here.

Congregational Gatherings: Slipping In and Stealing Away

Historians investigating African American religious history have labeled the secretive slave worship services the “Invisible Institution” because much of it was invisible to the eyes of their masters.

“In their cabins, woods, thickets, hollows, and brush arbors (shelter of cut branches also called ‘hush harbors’) throughout the South, slaves held their own religious meetings where they interpreted Christianity according to their experience, applying the stories and symbols of the Bible to make sense out of their lives.”

In order to worship freely, Christian slaves would either slip into a home or steal away to the woods. What actually occurred during these covert meetings to make them so fruitful? Pastor Peter Randolph provides the details we seek.

“Not being allowed to hold meetings on the plantation, the slaves assemble in the swamps, out of reach of the patrols. They have an understanding among themselves as to the time and place of getting together. This is often done by the first one arriving breaking boughs from the trees, and bending them in the direction of the selected spot.”

For them, worship and fellowship was worth any risk and was approached with tremendous expectancy. Does our commitment to and preparation for gathering together hold a candle to theirs?

Mutual Ministry: First Century Christianity in Nineteenth-Century America

Once there, then what?

“Arrangements are then made for conducting the exercises. They first ask each other how they feel, the state of their minds, etc. The male members then select a certain space, in separate groups, for their division of the meeting. Preaching in order by the brethren; then praying and singing all around, until they generally feel quite happy. The speaker usually commences by calling himself unworthy, and talks very slowly, until feeling the spirit, he grows excited, and in a short time, there fall to the ground twenty or thirty men and women under its influence.”

Sound familiar? Their experience sounds like Acts 2:42-47a.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. . . . All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.”

In Randolph’s gathering, they organized the organism (“made arrangements for conducting the exercises”). That is, though valuing spontaneity and the leading of the Spirit, they also treasured purposeful planning.

They sustained and healed (“ask each other how they feel, the state of their minds”). Given the hardships and hard times, we might imagine quite the lengthy spiritual conversations. Much different than our typical Sunday morning greetings. “Hello. How are you?” Without waiting for a response, we move on to our next target. Imagine, instead, if we really asked how others feel—exploring one another’s emotional life—on Sunday morning, in church! Imagine, also, if we truly probed one another’s state of mind—dealing with each another’s thought life and mental wellbeing—on Sunday morning, in church!

They enjoyed small group fellowship (“then select a certain space, in separate groups, for their division of the meeting”).

They were edified by the preached Word (“preaching in order by the brethren”). Later we’ll see that they would enjoy testifying by many members, exhorting by some members, and preaching by one primary, called-out leader.

They engaged in hearing from God and talking to God (“then praying and singing all around”). They prayed and praised; listened and spoke.

Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)

1. Concerning worship preparation and sacrifice, how would you compare your preparations for worship to the preparations made by African American believers in the Invisible Institution? How would you compare the sacrifices that you make in order to worship with the sacrifices that they made?

2. Reflect back on Randolph’s description of Acts 2:42-47 Christianity. In what ways are you already enjoying Acts 2:42-47 Christianity? How could you experience even more Acts 2:42-47 Christianity?

Peter Randolph's Peculiar Institution