And before I be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave;
And go home to my Lord and be free.
No mo' moan'n, no mo' weeping.
There'll be sing'n,
There'll be shout'n,
There'll be pray'n.
And before I be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave;
And go home to my Lord and be free."
Oh, that I was a child again. I remember getting ready for Sunday school and church every Sunday morning - hated it! You see, my grandmother and God were best friends. So we had to go to church every Sunday to spend time with baby Jesus, because that's when God would let all the other miscreants and misfits spend time with our Lord and Saviour - Jesus Christ. I even remember wondering about Jesus' whole name. I pondered - as inquisitive little girls often do - if Jesus' first name is Jesus and his last name is Christ, then what is his middle name? I reasoned, I have a middle name, so what was Jesus Christ's middle name? I spent hours upon hours of prepubescent exploration trying to come up with a name as special and as wonderful as "Jesus" and "Christ." I couldn't come up with one name! Tired and weary, I finally asked, "What is Jesus' middle name?" The answer? Yep, you guessed it, "Jesus doesn't have a middle name!" And to support that argument, I was informed that Mama didn't have a middle name either! OH-MY-GOD! My grandmother and God really were best friends - they even named their children in the same way! WOW! Needless to say, Mama didn't have much trouble out of me after that - well not until those crazy teenage years.
Okay, okay, seriously. I often reminisce about the songs we used to sing in church - those old Negro spirituals that resonated so profoundly within me that I knew I could feel the earth shake from the joy of the ancestors upon hearing them. We don't sing those songs anymore - not the way we used to sing them. I believe a lot is lost as a result. But the one above speaks particularly to the dilemma and power dynamics at play between two women whose lives converged by acts of manipulation and exploitation of men.
Much happens to bring these women together and much happens afterwards. Two different women, with very different backgrounds, cultures, traditions and faith systems. Hagar, the slave girl who knows she's a slave and Sarai, the special little "Misses" who, in many ways, is also a slave, interact with one another and others around them to create a relationship narrative of biblical proportion. Both are blessed with a male child - fathered by the same man. Two different babies, two different nations - two different faiths... "Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows."
Oh, I'm a child no more, and now I can't wait to get to church for bible study on Sunday! Who'da thunk it!
© Dorinda G. Henry, 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment