Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,
ring with the harmonies of liberty;
let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies, let
it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has
taught us,
sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought
us;
facing the rising sun of our new day begun, let us march
on till victory is won.
---James Weldon Johnson, 1900
This hymn, penned by the incredible American poet James
Weldon Johnson at the turning of the 20th century, gives me the
chills, partly for the inspiration of the text, and partly for the personal
history it holds for me. As a very young teacher in downtown Atlanta, I was
introduced to this song, as my students often sang it alongside the national
anthem as part of their morning inspiration. These children, not just in the
singing of this anthem, were often my teachers in those tender years; and these
words of hope were often a lifeline for me.
Today when I sat with this text, what came rushing to mind
were words from another song. In ‘I Have Made Mistakes’, the Oh Hellos sing:
We have lived in fear, we have
lived in fear, and our fear has betrayed us
And
we will overcome, we will overcome the apathy that has made us
Cause we are not alone, we are
not alone in the dark with our demons
We have made mistakes, we have
made mistakes, but we’ve learned from them.
I see so many beautiful parallels between these two songs.
The first truth, one that my own life bears out again and again, is that the
past, even the dark, can be a teacher. The voice of hope, the overcoming, is
strongly threaded throughout. But what stood out to me the most tonight (is
it because we are working on harmony singing in Older Children’s Choir each
Sunday night lately?) is the emphasis on
‘not-aloneness’. This world becomes so much less overwhelming when you are
holding hands with a brother or sister. And, although you can sing a beautiful
melody by yourself, you will never sing beautiful harmony until you sing it
with others.
This hopeful, tough, overcoming, rising, life of ours? It
is made for life together. And we belong to each other.
