The Forty-Day Journey of Promise

Day Twenty-Seven: Songs of the Soil and of the Soul

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.

Sacred Discontent

Most Christians are shocked to learn that, numerically, there are more Psalms of complaint and lament than there are Psalms of thanksgiving and praise. The writers of the spirituals would not have been surprised. They understood and practiced the historic Christian art of sacred discontent.

Slave spirituals about feeling God-forsaken emphasize the impossibility, this side of heaven, of quickly and finally resolving all hurt. When honestly sharing their lamentation over the absence of the felt presence of God, enslaved African Americans followed the Psalmists.

Their laments included honest complaints about their external world of “Level One Suffering”—what was happening around and to them. Their laments also involved candid complaints about their internal world of “Level Two Suffering”—what was happening in them, in their souls and minds as they reflected on their outer suffering.

William McClain’s terminology of songs of the soil and the soul best captures our concept of external and internal suffering.

“A very real part of the worship of Black people is the songs of Zion. Singing is as close to worship as breathing is to life. These songs of the soul and of the soil have helped to bring a people through the torture chambers of the last three centuries.”

Level I Suffering

As McClain continues, he speaks about the soil of external suffering and the soul of weary hearts.

“These spirituals reveal the rich culture and the ineffable beauty and creativity of the Black soul and intimate the uniqueness of the Black religious tradition. These spirituals speak of life and death, suffering and sorrow, love and judgment, grace and hope, justice and mercy. They are the songs of an unhappy people, a people weary at heart, a discontent people, and yet they are the most beautiful expression of human experience and faith this side of the seas.”

In fact, it was the soil of suffering souls that birthed the spirituals.

“Many of these spirituals were influenced by the surrounding conditions in which the slaves lived. These conditions were negative and degrading, to say the least; yet, miraculously, a body of approximately six thousand independent spirituals exists today—melodies that were, for the most part, handed down from generation to generation. . . . The Negro spirituals, as originated in America, tell of exile and trouble, of strife and hiding; they grope toward some unseen power and sigh for rest in the end.”

Clearly, the spirituals highlight longsuffering faith in a wearisome world.

“These songs of the soul and of the soil have enriched American music and the music of the world. . . . They are the articulate message of an oppressed people. They are the music of a captive people who used this artful expression to embrace the virtues of Christianity: patience, love, freedom, faith, and hope.”

Level II Suffering

Enslaved African Americans clearly understood and addressed the inner mental turmoil caused when a good God allows evil and suffering. Recognition and expression of this reality of the trial of faith kept them from wondering if anyone else ever struggled in similar ways.

Throughout biblical and church history, level two soul suffering often expressed itself in the haunting refrain of “How long, O, Lord” (compare Psalm 13). Enslaved African Americans continued this lament tradition.

My father, how long,

My father, how long,

My father, how long,

Poor sinner suffer here.

And it won’t be long,

Poor sinner suffer here.

We’ll soon be free.

De Lord will call us home.

We’ll walk de golden streets.

Of the New Jerusalem.

Notice the mixture and blending of endurance and assurance, another common historic practice modeled by believing slaves.

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

1. Which do you tend to focus on more: songs of the soil (external suffering) or songs of the soul (internal suffering)? Why do you suppose that is?

2. How could you better highlight both external suffering and internal suffering?