The song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was written by poet James Weldon Johnson with lyrics by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson in 1900 in celebration of the birthday of President Abraham Lincoln. First sung by five hundred Black school children, the song became contagious. It is considered the National Anthem of African Americans. It is sung on grand and not so grand occasions to remind us of victory over a way that with tears has been waters treading a path through the blood of the slaughtered.
Isaiah 43:2 says, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze".
This is an affirmation of the presence of God, the Everlasting, Omnipresent, All-pervading Presence in our lives each and every day with each and every breath with each and every circumstance.
So, he won the Presidency of the United States of American, a horrifying victory yet not totally unexpected. What he must not win is our hope, beliefs, commitment, visions of a better more just, compassionate, creative, and sustaining tomorrow.
The greater tragedy would be for this temporal and temporary victory to depress us, make us feel small, isolated, impotent, directionless, and unresourceful.
The great soul, Mahatma Gandhi, stated: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
Part of the heart of Dr. Howard Thurman’s essential teaching is that “the contradictions of life are neither final nor ultimate.”
What great assurance Gandhi and Thurman give as we negotiate the terrain ahead.
Dr. Jennifer Davidson offers this poetic interpretation of Psalm 92.
Something within me comes
to a place of stillness and rest
when I remember to thank you, God,
when I center my attention
on your Love.
In the morning, your Love is in the birdsong
At night, I remember your faithfulness
in the steady thrum of crickets.
I can let go in these moments of being —
simply feel joy because you are here.
For a breath or two I believe I can
tumble forever in the joy of you.
But I don’t. I forget again.
My spirit grows tired and threadbare
self-recrimination grows up in me
like thistle and weeds.
My eyes are drawn to all that seems broken
hopelessness seems to flourish
and struggle feels pointless.
Even so you draw my gaze back to you
hopelessness dissolves
fear flies from me.
You gently smooth my hands from
balled fists to open palms
So that I can receive the gifts you offer
freedom from fear
release from dread
comfort, lightness, and love.
Your vision for us is one of flourishing life
in well-watered soil.
Your desire for us draws us up and out
branches and leaves and fruit
and sap and nests filled with
birds that sing of your Love at
dawn’s first light.
As we grow old, you do not leave us
even when we feel most alone
when our hearing silences the birds
and our sight is ripped away.
Still the birds sing, the crickets thrum,
and a lifetime of learning to trust you
finds its moments of peace in
the silence and darkness of roots.
What must we do presently? We need to renew ourselves. Breathe. Breathe again and again. Remember that we are alive, with the breath of life coursing through our veins. Think of how beautiful we are, what is solid in us that cannot be upended. What are our values? What do we love most?
Where do we find our strength?
In the documentary film about the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, there is a scene where one of them says that when they get confused, they return to the sacred fire. From there they find directions, needing no maps.
What is your sacred fire? Return to it. If it is poetry, find a passage from your favorite poet that centers you. Music always uplifts me. “I’m on my way to the freedom land.” “Just like a tree planted by the waters, I shall not be moved.” "Walk together children, don’t you get weary.” “We shall overcome.”
There is hiking, listening to the sound of water flowing, tending a plant, being in community, meditating, socializing with a group of friends, having dinner at a favorite restaurant. Let your sacred fire create a sacred space and renew you for there is much ahead that needs your courage, strength, vision, wisdom, and love. Now is a time for you to be with yourself and marvel at how wonderfully you are made and made by the ultimate maker and sustainer of the universe.
Don’t let the present circumstances rob you of your dreams. Dr. Thurman says: “As long as a man (person) has a dream in his (their) heart, he (they) cannot lose the significance of living.” Yes, keep the dream alive. For “A dream is the bearer of a new possibility, the enlarged horizon, the great hope (Thurman).”
A sacred fire to which I return is Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited. While living in a colonized nation, the poor Palestinian Jew Jesus embodied a way to unfold his integrity, authenticity in ways that enlivened and emboldened those he encountered. He refused to allow the dominant power to instill fear or accept deception and hatred as ways of life. To do that would mean the erosion of his inner core and place him at the disposal of that unworthy and demonic power, to be a puppet of that power, to be annihilated by that power. Instead, he always kept fresh before him moments of high resolve.
Rebecca Solnit writes:
Things you do not have to do today.
--Join the frenzy of what/who to blame.
--Take in a bunch more media.
--Feel like you're ready to face the next five years and have to plan and strategize and do it all now.
(I'm seeing people decide they know what the next years will bring. Something terrible has happened, and we don't know exactly how it's all going to unfold and where we can achieve something to change outcomes. As I say about climate, I respect despair as an emotion but don't confuse it with an analysis. Don't get ahead of yourself. We should strategize, but as Daniel Hunter wrote in the piece I just posted, "The key to taking effective action in a Trump world is to avoid perpetuating the autocrat’s goals of fear, isolation, exhaustion and disorientation."
We don't have to strategize everything instantly, and in every crisis, improvisation is part of the art: we cannot plan how to deal with things that have not happened, may not happen as expected, etc. I think a lot of us just need to absorb the news and reorient ourselves and gather our resources. My climate group Oil Change International has already laid out a strategy. Others will follow soon. The people who do the work will do the work. The opportunities to join them will be there.)
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