Bending the String?

Rev. Seth Patterson

and Rev. Don Mackenzie

September 22, 2024

Scripture: Psalm 23

[Don plays some beautiful blues]

Seth

It is a joy today to be joined by Don Mackenzie, pastor, inter-faith theologian and musician. Don and I have been having a running conversation for years about music, faith, humanity with a recurring focus on the Blues. Don is a gift to me and a friend to this community. I am grateful for your presence, wisdom and talents today.

One person says: “I am so sad he is gone and I am so happy he is not suffering anymore.”

Another says: “I am devastated to live life without her and I am so relieved to have my own life back.” They say: “How could this happen to her? She was a good person who didn’t deserve this fate.”

This is humanity’s gift and its curse. The paradox. When two opposite things are true at the same time. Sadness and joy. Devastation and relief. Goodness and unfortunate outcomes. We live in paradox because we are emotionally complex enough to hold two things true at a time. We live in paradox because life makes it inevitable. The reality of paradox invites us to live into the great mystery of creation with the divine reassurance that we can hold these two opposing realities of despair and hope in a place of oneness, unconditional love and compassion.

[Don plays a blues riff]

Seth

We are a paradox people. We are hope and despair. We are a blues people.

Cornel West once said in a conversation with Toni Morrison that we are a “blues nation [that] has to learn from a blues people.”[1]

[Don plays a blues riff]

Seth

We are a paradox people. We are hope and despair. We are a blues people. The Blues is not despair. The Blues is not hope. They are both at the same time held together in music. The Blues is paradox as artform, as theological reality.

Don

In that same conversation with Cornel West, Toni Morrison said, “The blues is about some loss, some pain and some other things. But it doesn’t whine; even when it’s begging to be understood in the lyrics, the music contradicts that feeling of being a complete victim and completely taken over. There’s a sense of agency, even when someone has broken your heart. The process of having the freedom to have made that choice is what surfaces in blues. I don’t see it as a crying music.”

Seth

We are a paradox people. We are hope and despair. We can be a blues people.

[Don plays a blues riff]

Seth

One of the central questions of religion—especially monotheistic religions—is called the Epicurean paradox. It says: Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot—or God is able to and doesn’t want to. If God wants to but cannot then God is not all powerful. If God can but doesn’t want to, God participates in evil.

Today we are not asking why bad things happen or questioning the root of suffering. Rather we are stating that suffering exists, that bad things happen, that despair is part of life.

We also remember equally that good things happen, and that hope is part of being human.

We are a paradox people. We are hope and despair. We are a blues people.

Don

[Begins playing Goodnight Irene]

Sometimes I live in the country
Sometimes I live in town
Sometimes I take a great notion
To jump in the river and drown.

Chorus:
Irene good night
Irene, goodnight,
Goodnight Irene, goodnight Irene
I’ll see you in my dreams.

[Don keeps playing underneath the spoken words]

Seth

This song, Goodnight Irene, is an American Blues standard first recorded in 1933 by Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly. A subsequent version recorded by the Weavers was a #1 hit in 1950. Later it was re-popularized by Pete Seeger in the early 1960s. It is a quintessential Blues song.

The verses are about despair; “Sometimes I take a great notion to jump in the river and drown.”

And in the cracks, hope shines through in the chorus. There is love and desire, courage and hope in the quiet stillness of dreams.

Don

[Returns to the song]

Quit your ramblin’ quit your gamblin’
Quit staying out late at night
Go home to your wife and family
Sit down by the fireside bright.

Chorus

Seth

A Blues song could not be written without despair and could not be sung without hope. The reality of both is necessary for the Blues to be the Blues. This is a reality that is necessary for people to be people.

Born of the experiences of dehumanizing chattel slavery, Jim Crow oppression, and anti-Black systems of legal violence, the Blues is a gift to all of us, regardless of our personal history or identity.

As Black and Womanist Catholic theologian M. Shawn Copeland says: “The blues recount the Black struggle to cross the river of racism, certainly, but as that river rushes over the rapids of imperial domination all of us — irrespective of cultural, racial-ethnic identity, or religion — are caught in its current.”[2]

We are invited to embody a Blues hope that acknowledges both despair and hope. This is one way that we can reimagine our calling. We remember that God is present with us in both.  A Blues hope is also a Psalmist hope. Let us take a deep breath together as we open our ears, minds and hearts to these words of our spiritual ancestors in the very well-known Psalm 23:

[Don plays guitar under the Psalm.]

Seth

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
I am made to lie down in green pastures;
I am led beside still waters; these things restore my soul.
God leads me in the path of justice.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

[Music stops]

Seth

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for you are with me. Even though life can range from difficult to awful, God is with us no matter what. We are not loved only when things feel good or only when we feel broken. God’s love is present in it all. We are never alone, we shall not want for this abundant love.

Don

Hope is different from optimism. Optimism involves positive energy which is good. But hope has moral value, it hopes for something good, it engages us heart, mind and soul and it moves us to act. The key word is “moves.” But where does hope come from? We do not create it. We connect to it as we seek to increase our spiritual awareness.

We all walk a tightrope between hope and despair. Sometimes we slip back to despair and sometimes we move ahead toward hope.

Seth

But, Don, this all makes sense logically. My guess is that most folks get this paradox. The problem is that it is especially hard to remember when we are in those times of despair. What do we do then?

Don

We bend the note.

Seth

You do what?

Don

You bend the note like this. [Plays] This is your life—this is your life with hope! Bending the note is essential. That is called the blue note.

Seth

The Blue note. You bend the string. Why?

Don

It opens the space in the monolith of despair for hope to shine through.

Seth

It opens a space and allows hope to shine through? It doesn’t eliminate the despair, it doesn’t change the root situation, but it opens up space.

So, it seems like bending the string is an act of defiance, that our despair isn’t static. It can be bent and new space can be opened.

Don

There is a line from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome that embraces the dynamics we are talking about. “Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.[3]

Seth

There is a chain of events that links suffering to hope, but they are always connected.

The note of despair can always be bent to allow the space for hope. There seems to be resilience in this. And imagination. In that space, in that opening, we see what is newly possible. Practicing that space-making will help us be more resilient whenever suffering inevitably shows up.

Don

Exactly.

Seth

But Don—and I hate to bring this up—I am not trying to question your wisdom here—but, I am a careful listener and there were no bent notes in the entirety of Goodnight Irene.

Don

Ahh, you noticed! Bending the note can be literal of figurative. Goodnight Irene bends the note, so to speak, because it is a waltz. Typically, waltzes are upbeat and lively or smooth and soothing. To have a ¾ timed Blues song is an unlikely choice. But the contrast between the despair of the verses and the hope of the chorus makes it one of the great blues songs of all time.

Do you think the people here will sing along if we play it one more time?

Seth

Only one way to find out!

Goodnight Irene

Sometimes I live in the country,
Sometimes I live in town,
Sometimes I take a great notion
To jump in the river and drown.

Chorus:
Irene good night
Irene, goodnight,
Goodnight Irene, goodnight Irene
I’ll see you in my dreams.

Last Saturday night I got married
Me and my wife settled down
Now me and my wife have parted
Gonna take me a stroll uptown.

Chorus

Quit your ramblin’ quit your gamblin’
Quit stayin’ out late at night.
Go home to your wife and family
Sit down by the fireside bright!

Chorus

Seth

We are a paradox people. We are hope and despair. We can be a blues people. We must not ignore the despair, we cannot lie about the suffering, we cannot wish it away. But we must be able to bend the note and open the space for hope. Open the space for God to be present. Open the space for the unexpected.

Don

We are a paradox people. We are hope and despair. We can be a blues people.  We can always bend the note. The paradox of hope and despair occurs in many places in our lives—not just in the form we call the blues. This is important because the more we recognize that, the more we become aware that this is part of the great mystery of creation, we can remember we are held by a power greater than we—a power we call God.

Seth

We are a paradox people. We are hope and despair. We can be a blues people. We can bend the note and let hope shine through.

Don

May it be so.

Seth

May we make it so. Amen.

[1]https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/toni-morrison-cornel-west-politics/

[2]National Catholic Reporter (https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/decolonizing-faith-and-society/we-need-embody-blues-hope)

[3]Romans 5:3a-5.