Humankind is created with a spiritual dimension that must be nourished if humanity is to reach beyond the smallness of the self and accomplish the greatness that is necessary to achieve justice and liberty. The reach is to bring the impossible into time and space. This comes with a recognition of the Creator who is beyond finite existence. This One is neither confined nor hindered by time and space or any earthly power. This Omnipotent One informs and sustains the spirit in human beings. This One plants within mere flesh dreams that can only be accomplished with Divine guidance and assistance. In stanza 3, James Wheldon Johnson recognizes God who has been there in every crisis that has befallen the African American. The people could not have survived without a faith in the Almighty.
Johnson reminds the disinherited to remember God who has been ever present with them. Humankind resides on a speck of matter in the universe. God is beyond the sphere of the earth and beyond the Milky Way, the galaxy in which earth exists. The whole of the universe and beyond is God’s creation and habitat. Comets streak across the sky. Supernovas explode with new stars. Go to the country and look up at the sky on a clear night at the stars and planets and moon. Travel to northern Canada or the artic countries and see the dancing painting of light that is named the Northern Lights. These are not human creations; they compel humans to look up in awe. The whole of the universe and beyond is God’s work. Human intellect cannot grasp the whole of the Divine.
The alienated pray to the Almighty to give them the fortitude of body, mind, and spirit to reach for liberty and justice which are Divinely ordained. The disinherited pray to God and sometimes sit in silence and sometimes wallow in sobs and agonizing moans before the Almighty. Though the Maker does not always act in the time and manner expected, the Supreme Being moves and increases the strength of those who ask for help. God is beyond humankind and simultaneously intimate with them. God enables the disinherited to strive beyond themselves and their circumstances to accomplish the work of the acquisition of liberty and justice for all. God attends to their prayers and acts on their behalf which is for the good of all.
And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he’ll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing. You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation—I don’t want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God’s deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part. II Corinthians 1:10-11, The Message
Reflection
No [person] knows what [s/he] can do until [ s/he] tries. Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-education of the Negro
God of our weary years,
God of our silent rears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our God,
True to our native land.
Lift Every Voice and Sing, Stanford Talisman Singers Alumni – Virtual
Dorothy Watson Tatem, D.Min., ACC
Senior Associate
Next Step Associates, LLC
Cassandra W. Jones, Ed.D.
CEO & President
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