Joy Unspeakable

Contemplative Practices of the Black Church

Barbara A. Holmes

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781506421612
• eBook ISBN: 9781506421629
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Joy Unspeakable focuses on the aspects of the black church that point beyond particular congregational gatherings toward a mystical and communal spirituality not within the exclusive domain of any denomination. This mystical aspect of the black church is deeply implicated in the well-being of African American people but is not the focus of their intentional reflection. Moreover, its traditions are deeply ensconced within the historical memory of the wider society and can be found in Coltrane's riffs, Malcolm's exhortations, the social activism of the Black Lives Matter Movement and the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. The research in this book-through oral histories, church records, and written accounts--details not only ways in which contemplative experience is built into African American collective worship but also the legacy of African monasticism, a history of spiritual exemplars, and unique meditative worship practices. A groundbreaking work in its original edition, Joy Unspeakable now appears in a new, revised edition to address the effects of this contemplative tradition on activism and politics and to speak to a new generation of readers and scholars.

2

Retrieving Lost Legacies: Contemplation in West Africa

We have to return to the past to see what remains of the present.

—Sankofa proverb

How sad that you yourself veil the treasure that is yours.

—Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Something occurred in Africa that was so deep, so powerful, and so rich that it affected the rest of the world.

—Paisius Altschul

African religions have neither founders nor reformers. They have neither “authorized versions” nor canonical scriptures. The religions simply flow out of the life of the peoples.

—Henry H. Mitchell

Africa, My Africa

The Africa that I turn to for the roots of indigenous contemplative practices is as much a construct of my diasporic imagination as it is the object of my historical interest. Few Africans in the Americas have visited Africa, and even when we do, we encounter the specifics of localized culture that only give us hints about the broader context. My visit to Kenya cannot help me to unravel the intricacies of Senegal. On a continent as ethnically and religiously diverse as Africa, there is little that can be generalized. However, one can discern unique cultural orientations.

Today, many people rely upon Discovery Channel footage of secret ceremonies for their view of Africa. Is it any wonder, then, that Africana contemplative practices have completely slipped from view? In this chapter, I explore the indigenous practices that speak to the African contemplative spiritual legacy. I am particularly interested in the practices of West Africa because it is from these shores that most of the diaspora began the Middle Passage to the Americas.

Also, I am grateful for the research of African scholars. In recent years, our glimpses of African life and worship have been greatly enhanced by the scholarship of John Mbiti, Muse Dube, Jacob Olupona, Marcel Oyono, Jean-Marc Ela, and Mercy Amba Oduyoye. Their research points to a cosmology that embraces multiple realities without clear demarcations between everyday life and the spirit realm.

In West Africa, the flow of contemplative life is interwoven with the rhythm of talking drums and bustling cities, rites of passage, and a communal witness to the difficulties of postcolonial life. From childbirth to death, spirit and flesh breathe as one; silences and ecstatic performance erupt during ritual and daily routines. Always the practices point beyond the visible to the invisible. Life is received as a gift and passed on as a legacy.

Life is one. It is handed down from parents to children. . . . People know where their lives come from and that they are part of a stream of life that has always flowed through their family. The individual is nothing but the recipient of life, and has the duty to pass it on. What is important is not the individual, but the collective—the family, the clan, the whole people.^[1]

Connections to spirits, holy and ancestral, are taken-for-granted aspects of indigenous African life. The ancestors are caretakers and guardians. Guardians are necessary because sometimes spirits make themselves known as trickster provocateurs. Sometimes during shamanic rituals, bodily possession becomes the proof positive that reality is layered in the most incongruous of ways.

Because these journeys were saved for posterity in the memories of griots and drummers, objective linkages are tenuous at best. I am not assuming that there will be retentions that are directly linked to Africa; instead, I am seeking the cosmological orientations that contributed to contemplative undercurrents in Africana diaspora worship practices. This is neither theological tourism nor the quest for titillating exoticism. The hermeneutical lens that I am using to view African spiritual practices reveals the exotic stranger not just in indigenous cultures but also in the inner recesses of every human heart. On this planet, we are all indigenous strangers; some of us just have the good sense to know and embrace this reality.

Africa: The Land of Spiritual Origins

The most ironic turn of events in the twenty-first century is the discovery that all human beings are Africans. Archaeologists tell us that we are all the children of an African “Eve,” the first human female. As a consequence, Africa’s legacies belong not just to its people on the continent and in the diaspora but also to the global community. But exactly what is that legacy? Unfortunately, the imperialists who invaded and divided the continent believed that Africa’s contributions to the world were limited to the tangible riches of the earth, that is, gold, diamonds, and fertile land.

Nevertheless, there are other riches ensconced in diverse contemplative religious traditions. These traditions focus attention on the spirit realm, daily communal flourishing, and an embodied spirituality deeply rooted in African culture. Although Africa’s spiritual legacy includes its encounter with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions, there were and still are indigenous contemplative religious expressions, which were firmly established before the monotheisms swept the continent.

Robert Williams notes that “the universe of African reality includes powers and principalities, ancestors and the cosmos.”^[2] Those who live in the midst of these realities recognize the fact that they are sharing an animate life world that is fully imbued with energy.

Historical and Spiritual Resonances

Indigenous Cosmologies

Albert Raboteau refers to the African cosmos as a reality infused with historical and spiritual resonances. He believes that attention to the history of Christianity in its earliest stages reveals African origins deeply rooted in traditional practices. According to Raboteau, “ancient Christianity is not, as many think, a European religion. Christian communities were well established in Africa by the third and fourth centuries.”^[3] As a consequence, the contemplative practices that emerge in the diaspora have ties to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

As for spiritual resonances, Raboteau speaks of the superimposition of human and divine worlds. Each world is vibrant and populated with beings who can interact with one another through rituals and tradition. Ancestors have the ability to mediate and interfere, while gods, who represent varying character aspects of the high God, possess, visit, and guide. In his comparison of African indigenous practices with orthodoxy, Raboteau suggests that African spirituality invites the people to carry the power of God within them. This power is not limited to human vessels but can also be found in nature and in material objects.^[4] “African spirituality does not dichotomize body and Spirit, but views the human being as embodied spirit and inspirited body, so that the whole person—body and spirit—is involved in the worship of God.”^[5] This means that a back flayed by a whip can become the conduit of worship, that the body hanging from a cypress tree plunges into the depths of God’s own sorrow. In the midst of this theology is a presumption of metaphysical completion that is contemplative and extraordinary.

In African cosmologies, contemplation is mystical, pragmatic, and efficacious. The African presumption is that we sojourn with God as God sojourns with us, and this mutual “abiding” takes place in a spiritually vigorous and responsive cosmos. African contemplations acknowledge spiritual entities and energies as part of the everyday world. One example of the manifestation of these energies can be found in the veneration of water spirits, that is, Marni Water (Wata).^[6] This water spirit is represented by an element of nature or a feminine or transgendered life force that mediates the confluence of human/divine interaction.^[7] The water spirits beckon and teach devotees about the character of God and the wisdom of the ancestors.

Stories of the annual festival of Duoala people provide a meaningful example of these interactive contemplative practices. It is said that once a year designated people enter the river to meet with the spirits and ancestors. They submerge without scuba gear or breathing equipment in full view of onlookers, beckoned by the water spirits. Dr. Marcel Oyono tells me that they dive to the bottom of the river and stay for hours at a time, returning with artifacts and gifts from the ancestors.^[8] People speak of these encounters in ways that make it impossible to differentiate mythology and symbol from ascertainable action. In this instance, contemplation becomes a rhythm of life, a permeation of the ordinary with the surreal.

Robert Farris Thompson describes these ineffable moments within the context of Yoruban culture:^[9] “The gods have ‘inner’ or ‘spiritual’ eyes . . . with which to see the world of heaven and ‘outside eyes’ ..... with which to view the world of men and women. When a person comes under the influence of a spirit . . . ordinary eyes swell to accommodate the inner eyes, the eyes of the god.”^[10] Farris describes the contemplative moment as an expansion of human perception and a visitation of God’s unblinking inner and outer eye. When God is present, we respond in body and in spirit. Sometimes the eye swells, other times the feet leap, but inevitably the heart journeys home. This expansion of perception may occur, in the midst of a frenzied ritual possession,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• Introduction: An Unlikely Legacy
• Contemplation: A Cultural and Spiritual History
• Retrieving Lost Legacies: Contemplation in West Africa
• Every Shut Eye Ain’t Sleep: The Inner Life During Slavery
• Come Ye Disconsolate: Contemplation in Black Church Congregational Life
• Joy Comes in the Morning: Contemplative Themes in African American Biblical Interpretation
• Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Contemplation, Activism, and Praxis
• Black Lives Matter and the Black Church: Twenty-First-Century Contemplative Activism
• Deep Rivers: The Contemplative Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama
• At the Crossroads: Art, Activism, and the Contemplative Life
• Afterword: Toward a Future Together
• Suggested Readings
• Index of Subjects and Names