Note: As part of Black History Month, I’ll be posting excerpts from my book, Beyond the Suffering: Learning from the Legacy of African American Soul Care. It’s powerful to study Black Church History. It is even more powerful and impactful to learn from and to apply lessons from the history of African American one-another ministry. In today’s post, we learn from Olaudah Equiano.
From Victims to Victors
Free born Africans were ripped away from spouses, parents, children, village, and culture by capture. Stripped of everything, overnight they were transformed from farmers, merchants, scholars, artisans, or warriors into possessions. Without family, without status, they were treated as merchandise, as things—a mere extension of their captors’ will.
James Bradley portrays the dehumanization of capture in all its horror in a letter that he wrote in 1834 while a student at Lane Seminary in Cincinnati.
“I think I was between two and three years old when the soul-destroyers tore me from my mother’s arms, somewhere in Africa, far back from the sea. They carried me a long distance to a ship; all the way I looked back and cried.”
Born Free
Without a doubt, free-born Africans were victims of an inhumane institution. Yet, they were also victors wrestling to maintain their humanity and personhood. But how? In the midst of soul-destroyers, where did they find soul-deliverance? Their “Capture Narratives” tell their tale and provide our answer.
“I . . . acknowledge the mercies of Providence in every occurrence of my life.”
These words from the pen of the Christian Olaudah Equiano might seem trite until we realize that they introduce the narrative of his harrowing kidnapping and enslavement.
Equiano was born free in 1745 in the kingdom of Benin on the coast of Africa, then known as Guinea. The youngest of seven children, his loving parents gave him the name Olaudah, signifying favored one. Indeed, he lived a favored life in his idyllic upbringing in a simple and quiet village where his father served as the “chief man” who decided disputes and punished crimes, and where his mother adored him dearly.
Bathed in Tears: Weeping with Those Who Weep
At age ten, it all came crashing down.
“One day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both; and, without giving us time to cry out, or make resistance, they stopped our mouths, tied our hands, and ran off with us into the nearest wood: and continued to carry us as far as they could, till night came on, when we reached a small house, where the robbers halted for refreshment, and spent the night.”
His kidnappers then unbound Equiano and his sister. Overpowered by fatigue and grief, they had just one source of relief.
“The only comfort we had was in being in one another’s arms all that night, and bathing each other with our tears.”
Equiano and his sister model a foundational principle of sustaining empathy: weeping with those who weep. Far too often we rush in with words, and far too often those words are words of rescue. Our hurting friends need our silence, not our speeches. The shed tear and the silent voice provide great enrichment for our spiritual friends.
The Power of Personal Presence
Olaudah Equiano and his sister were soon deprived of even the comfort of weeping together.
“The next day proved a day of greater sorrow than I had yet experienced; for my sister and I were then separated, while we lay clasped in each other’s arms; it was in vain that we besought them not to part us: she was torn from me, and immediately carried away, while I was left in a state of distraction not to be described. I cried and grieved continually; and for several days did not eat any thing but what they forced into my mouth.”
Over the ensuing years, Equiano frequently changed masters. Weighed down by grief and a ravenous desire to return to his family, he decided to seize the first opportunity to escape. However, during a failed attempt he realized that the expanse that separated him from his home was too great and too dangerous.
“I . . . laid myself down in the ashes, with an anxious wish for death to relieve me from all my pains.”
Left of the Rising Sun
Death refused to visit. Instead, Equiano was sold repeatedly, each time:
“Carried to the left of the sun’s rising, through many dreary wastes and dismal woods, amidst the hideous roarings of wild beasts.”
Being “left of the sun’s rising” paints a poetic picture of hopelessness—reflecting an absence of the hope that people have when they are “right of the rising sun” and thus anticipating that the sun will soon approach to dispel their darkness.
Equiano had been traveling in this manner for a considerable time when one evening, to his great surprise, traders brought his dear sister to the house where he was staying.
“As soon as she saw me she gave a loud shriek, and ran into my arms. I was quite overpowered; neither of us could speak, but, for a considerable time, clung to each other in mutual embraces, unable to do any thing but weep.”
Ministry Even in Agony
For a time, the joy of their reunion distracted them from their misfortunes. But this, too, passed.
“For scarcely had the fatal morning appeared, when she was again torn from me for ever! I was now more miserable, if possible, than before. The small relief which her presence gave me from pain was gone, and the wretchedness of my situation redoubled my anxiety after her fate, and my apprehensions lest her sufferings should be greater than mine, when I could not be with her to alleviate them.”
Even in his agony, Equiano offers words of insight into ministry. Note that it was “her presence” that gave him relief from his pain, and that he longed to “be with her to alleviate” her suffering. Before all else fails, implement what never fails—personal presence.
Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses
- How could your people ministry grow if you empathetically bathed others in your tears?
- How could your people ministry grow if you applied the truth that your hurting friends need your silence, not your speeches?
- How could your people-ministry grow if you focused on the power of presence?
- Have you ever experienced the hopelessness of feeling like you were to the left of the rising sun—that your dark night would never end? If so, how did God comfort you during the dark night of your soul?
