The Northwest Files

Ain't No Grave

I found myself close to tears several times during rehearsal with the Central Oregon Mastersingers a couple of days ago. That’s because I was moved and touched by a spiritual we’re doing for our fall concert. It’s called “Ain’t No Grave.”

It’s a song of hope and optimism even though the people responsible for this powerful song had little reason for such hope and optimism. I think that as this month (August, 2019) marks the 400^th anniversary of slavery’s being brought to America, the bright light of that hope and optimism is important. Read the attached piece, please, for context.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html

In what seems like bitter irony, those people sang with courage and conviction that they were not going to be held down. Ain’t no Grave gonna hold me down? Right! And they would not be held down by anything else, either, they seem to be saying. They seemed to know, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that America was better than that. And so were they. And the rest of us? Maybe, perhaps; but only with their help and their tireless push for civil rights.

The notes on the sheet music attribute this tune to the early 20th Century, or maybe a little earlier, but who knows how far back it really goes? As the New York Times story referenced above points out, the era of attribution, the beginning of the 20^th Century, was the middle of the post-Reconstruction era called Second Slavery. Black rights often were codified, sure; but they were widely ignored. Beatings, abuse, rape, torture of all kinds, and lynchings were common.

Good jobs for blacks were mostly nonexistent. Prosperity was, for the most part, something to which only white people could aspire. Likewise, voting. Likewise, education. Likewise, of course, healthcare, access to bathrooms, public water fountains, education, and so much more. For more on Second Slavery, go here:

https://sites.google.com/view/colormyhistory/museum/second-slavery

In the course of my choral career, I’ve sung lots of spirituals. I am not a fan. I like the Great Music, the High Church music, if you will, though I have no religious convictions whatsoever, and lack patience with those who do. But “Ain’t No Grave” is special, I think. It seems to have strength and meaning far beyond what’s there on the surface of the text.

Maybe all art is indeed political.

-JFT

 

Lincoln, Skype and the Mission Field

First of all, probably some definitions are in order.

Skype is a system that lets you talk to folks, complete with video, using the Web. It appears to be free. At least so far.

Mission Field – that is, from my perspective at least, Adventism-think that means sending well-meaning folks out to foreign lands to convert the perfectly happy and content locals to the SDA’s way of thinking.

These two things are top-of-consciousness today because, first, my old pal Lincoln Morikone, who was my roommate for a couple of years in boarding school, and who many years later introduced Laura and I, is working as administrator for an Adventist “hospital” in Banepa, Nepal, in a village just outside Katmandu; and second, because from time to time I talk with Lincoln via Skype.

The computer in his office is equipped with a Web-cam, and my laptop has one built into its lid, so we can not only talk, but view each other while we’re talking. It’s a pretty cool deal, and I’m impressed by it.

I’m less impressed with Lincoln’s mission experience. From what he says, conditions there are worse than deplorable, with care-givers not even doing the basics like washing their hands when they provide services to a patient, or perform procedures in the hospital’s lab.

Lincoln says that there’s no heat in his house, so the temp inside at night is 30 degrees Fahrenheit and, during the day, never higher than 45. He says that because of a fuel crisis, problems with fuel for the hospital’s ambulance, and for the stoves that cook food, persist, leading to restlessness among the locals. No fire, no rice, in other words. I gather that his wife is maybe a little impatient with him for accepting this posting.

I haven’t paid much attention to what’s going on in the SDA world, but I wonder if church giving isn’t down. Lincoln said two things that make me wonder that.

The first is that his pay as the hospital’s administrator is $104 per month. (No, that is not a typo. My guess is that the kid who is the new administrator at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, by way of comparison, is paid something like $12,500 a month, and his legions of vice presidents probably get just a little less than that, suggesting that the Adventists take huge advantage of dummies who want to be missionaries.)

The second is that when he sends an American medical missionary home for any reason – sickness or incompetence or whatever – the Adventists apparently remove that person’s salary from the mission budget. Instead of sending another missionary, Lincoln is required to find a local to fill whatever the now-open job is. Not easy, I gather, when you’re looking for a prosthetics technician, for instance, or for a heart surgeon.

Lincoln says he puts up with this because he’s “saving lives,” an argument I find curious because I doubt one has to go quite so far afield to fulfill that goal, given the level of poverty and sickness here in some areas of the rural US;  but OK, if that’s what he wants. I just hope he gets out of there in time to save his own life.

Our routine, when he was here in Glendale, was to cruise over to Damon’s, an old-Glendale tradition, at lunch time for a burger. I’d much rather do that with him that chat with him over Skype. And I’m hoping that we get to do that again soon.

-JFT