{"id":1558,"date":"2009-01-23T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html"},"modified":"2009-01-23T05:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-23T05:30:00","slug":"in-honor-of-contribution-of-af","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html","title":{"rendered":"In Honor of Contributions of African Americans by Rather Be a Dolphin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, I spent a good amount of time writing down the words to a spiritual familiar to most Christians and many non-Christians&#8211;just by listening again and again to it, though my eyes serve better than my ears in such matters. What an unbelievable experience, I&#8217;ll tell you. The version came from St. Augustine Choir, Leon C. Roberts, conductor, and I personally find what he did with that song, well, spiritual. I had just purchased the CD, by the way, and thought writing about one of the songs appropriate for January when we celebrate the contributions of African Americans in our country.<br \/>\nPerhaps it is a given that any song about light and strength might find its way into the collection of one&#8217;s personal music. But, before I share the lyrics of the song, on this month of January in which we celebrate the contributions of Martin Luther King, Jr., and watch on January 20th with a sacred incredulity yet another page of American history turn with the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, an African American&#8230;before that, I want to travel the unlevel dirt roads to swamplands of another place and time when a slave braved swamp waters rather than remain in other treacherous waters of slavery and degradation.<br \/>\nHer name, Harriet Jacobs, 22 years old. The time, 1835. The place, one of the Carolinas.<br \/>\nLeaving the swamp behind her, nothing felt better than her grandmother&#8217;s storeroom, a garrett, a small crawl space over that storeroom.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nFor seven years relatives fed and aided her through the extremes of summer heat and the bitter cold of winter, but she never dare leave the garret, for a few feet below often stood her master, a Mr. Flint, when he was not out searching for her.<br \/>\nDay fell into day, night into night. Then one day, Harriet hit her head on an object, surprisingly a gimlet, a tool for boring holes.<br \/>\nFinding the correct side of the garret, the one facing the street, that night she bore three small spaces and a few even smaller spaces into the wood. From that point on, she could watch her children below from the garret.<br \/>\nThis truly was her greatest consolation, her greatest light, her greatest strength during those seven years, for Harriet Jacobs lived long in the dim light, trusting always in a sure Light that gave her nothing to fear so that one day she would descend from that garret into the bright light of freedom.<br \/>\nIf you want to read more of this true account, you may in <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=VNK0QUMnoCkC&amp;dq=Incidents+in+the+Life+of+a+Slave+Girl.&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;source=bn&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;resnum=4&amp;ct=result\">Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.<\/a><br \/>\nHow appropriate now in January and in consideration of what was and what is to come to hear from &#8220;Songs of Faith&#8221; from &#8220;Lead Me, Guide Me,&#8221; The African America Catholic Hymnal words of light and strength:<br \/>\n<strong>The Lord Is My Light<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Verse<\/em><br \/>\nThe Lord is my light and my salvation,<br \/>\nThe Lord is my light and my salvation,<br \/>\nThe Lord is my light and my salvation,<br \/>\nWhom should I fear?<br \/>\n<em>Refrain<\/em><br \/>\nWhom shall I fear?<br \/>\nWhom shall I fear?<br \/>\nThe Lord is the strength of my life,<br \/>\nWhom should I fear?<br \/>\n<em>Verse<\/em><br \/>\nIn times of trouble, He shall find me,<br \/>\nIn times of trouble, He shall find me,<br \/>\nIn times of trouble, He shall find me.<br \/>\nWhom shall I fear?<br \/>\n<em>Refrain<\/em><br \/>\nWhom shall I fear?<br \/>\nWhom shall I fear?<br \/>\nThe Lord is the strength of my life,<br \/>\nWhom shall I fear?<br \/>\n<em>Verse<\/em><br \/>\nWait on the Lord, and He&#8217;ll prove worthy,<br \/>\nWait on the Lord, and He&#8217;ll prove worthy,<br \/>\nWait on the Lord, and He&#8217;ll prove worthy,<br \/>\nHe shall strengthen my soul.<br \/>\n<em>Refrain<\/em><br \/>\nWhom shall I fear?<br \/>\nWhom whom     whom whom    whom whom whom    shall I fear?<br \/>\nThe Lord is the strength of my life,<br \/>\nWhom whom    whom whom whom    whom&#8211;in the time of trouble&#8211;<br \/>\nWhom&#8211;wait on the Lord&#8211;whom    whom whom whom    shall I fear?<br \/>\nCopyright@p 1993 GIA Publications, Inc.<br \/>\n<em>To read more <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\">Beyond Blue, go to http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue<\/a>, and to get to <a href=\"http:\/\/community.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\">Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.feedburner.com\/fb\/a\/emailverifySubmit?feedId=611738&amp;loc=en_US\">To subscribe to &#8220;Beyond Blue&#8221; click here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"rss.gif\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/71\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif\" width=\"45\" height=\"44\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, I spent a good amount of time writing down the words to a spiritual familiar to most Christians and many non-Christians&#8211;just by listening again and again to it, though my eyes serve better than my ears in such matters. What an unbelievable experience, I&#8217;ll tell you. The version came from St. Augustine Choir, Leon&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In Honor of Contributions of African Americans by Rather Be a Dolphin - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Honor of Contributions of African Americans by Rather Be a Dolphin - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday, I spent a good amount of time writing down the words to a spiritual familiar to most Christians and many non-Christians&#8211;just by listening again and again to it, though my eyes serve better than my ears in such matters. What an unbelievable experience, I&#8217;ll tell you. The version came from St. Augustine Choir, Leon&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-23T05:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"In Honor of Contributions of African Americans by Rather Be a Dolphin - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"In Honor of Contributions of African Americans by Rather Be a Dolphin - Beyond Blue","og_description":"Yesterday, I spent a good amount of time writing down the words to a spiritual familiar to most Christians and many non-Christians&#8211;just by listening again and again to it, though my eyes serve better than my ears in such matters. What an unbelievable experience, I&#8217;ll tell you. The version came from St. Augustine Choir, Leon&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2009-01-23T05:30:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif"}],"author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html","name":"In Honor of Contributions of African Americans by Rather Be a Dolphin - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif","datePublished":"2009-01-23T05:30:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-23T05:30:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/01\/in-honor-of-contribution-of-af.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"In Honor of Contributions of African Americans by Rather Be a Dolphin"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. 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Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet.com. She is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression &amp; Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You may find her at her personal blog, her website, or you may follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thereseborchard.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/tborchard"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}