We Need Creatives

Singing and preaching, in the Black Church, are invariable conditions of a successful ministry and necessary in the testimony service. “The saints” want to know two things about your congregation: can the preacher preach and can the singers sing? C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya believe that both singing and preaching “trace their roots back to Africa where music and religion and life itself were all one holistic enterprise.”[1] Lincoln and Lawrence, reflecting on African culture before the transatlantic slave trade, say, “There was no disjunction between the sacred and the secular, and music, whether vocal or instrumental, was an integral aspect of the celebration of life, as indeed was the dance which the music inspired in consequence of its evocation of the human spirit.”[2] Singing was a way for Africans to negotiate their environments. Singing was a navigational tool that the slaves maintained during the development of Slave Spirituality. Lincoln and Lawrence say, “In the Black Church singing together is not so much an effort to find, or to establish, a transitory community as it is the reaffirmation of a common bond that, while inviolate, has suffered the pain of separation since the last occasion of physical togetherness.”[3]

In his book Spirituals and the Blues, James Cone says, “Black music is unity music. It unites the joy and the sorrow, the love and hate, the hope and the despair of black people; and it moves the people toward the direction of total liberation.”[4] Cone believes that there is an “inseparable bond that exists between black life and black art.”[5] Black art is a reality to be lived, it is a functional good that is directly related to the consciousness of the black community. Singing is a form of art and art is a form of protest, resistance and opposition towards the dominant culture. Cone calls black music “an artistic rebellion against the humiliating deadness of western culture.”[6]

If we are to embody an alternative society, that new reality must embrace “artistic rebellion” as Cone puts it. Art is a tool that captures the imagination of people, fueling them with images of the world to come, inspiring them with illustration, portraits, poetry, soliloquy and song. Art is the personification of theology, it is the embodiment of abstract ideology, art is necessary because it gives us reins to grasp tightly during the tumultuous uncertain tides of change. Not every person will be skilled enough to sing in the way particular to the Black Church tradition, but there are so many ways that we should be encouraging others to create.

I was recently introduced to an ancient form of Christian prayer known as Visio Divina or “sacred seeing.” Visio Divina is designed to engage our hearts and imaginations through the use of visual art. The goal is to see what God is saying through a painting, sculpture or portrait. Visio Divina is an ancient form but rarely used in the 21st century protestant church. Visio Divina, like Lectio Divina is to the Catholic liturgy what soulful singing is the black testimony service. If we’re going to imagine an alternative society, we need to consider various art forms that are both new and ancient.

Further, expressing art resists the consumer narrative which compels us to live in a product-oriented culture. Christine Valters Paintner, in her book The Eyes of the Heart, says, “The process of art-making or prayer becomes a journey of discovery, where we open ourselves to what is being revealed moment by moment, rather than what we hope or expect to see.”[7] She encourages her audience to focus on the process rather than the product, saying,

When we focus on the process of art-making, rather than the product, we can immerse ourselves in the creative journey and discover the ways God is moving through our lives and how we are being invited to respond. We release our plans and expectations and pay attention to what is actually unfolding within us.[8]

Singing in testimony service was one of the ways a resource deficient people engaged in the act of art making. The fact remains, testimony is an invitation to cultivate space together and to engage in art-making.[9] Paintner concludes, “For me, both art and spirituality are truly about tending to the moments of life: listening deeply, holding space, encountering the sacred, and touching eternity.”[10]

The painful contention most creative people will feel is the discouraging nature of their environments and its capacity to diminish their passion to create. Creatives, from my experience, often seek inspiration from their surroundings. The truth is, our environments are too often riddled with injustice, abuse, discrimination and social wrongdoing that robs us of our desire to engage in art-making. It reminds me of the tormented retort found in the Psalms when Israel’s captors demanded creativity, “For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’”[11] The query was answered in lament, “How could we sing the Lord 's song in a foreign land?”[12] There are days this response has resonated in my heart. I may never forget sitting on stage behind a grand piano after the white congregant insisted that my hair and skin didn’t match the cowboy aesthetic, wondering how to create art in a space that did not value my particularity. There are almost countless times when toxic environments have purloined my desire to make art. Nancy L Declaissé-Walford, Rolf A Jacobson, and Beth Laneel Tanner add their commentary to this Psalm saying, “In that foreign setting, the Psalm-singers sing no more.”[13]

The overwhelming consensus in the face of brutality is often to “sing no more,” to paint no more, to write no more, to shoot photography no more. Testimony service, in the Black Church, teaches us that pain doesn’t necessarily impede the emergence of beauty. Singing, and thus art, in the Black Church, is about seeing what exists beyond the suffering. Art making is not about recklessly dismissing or diminishing the reality of suffering, it is about growing and maturing the ability to imagine even when the night is tragically dim. Paintner says, “Part of the spiritual journey is learning how to see, not with our physical eyes, but with our spiritual eyes. Spiritual seeing simply receives the present moment without judgment or trying to make plans or set agendas.”[14] If we are to live in an alternative society, in a new social community, we must continue to join the Triune God in the joy and privilege of creating.

[1] C Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H Mamiya, The Black Church in the African-American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990), 346. [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid., 347. [4] Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues, 5. [5] Ibid. [6] Ibid., 6. [7] Christine Valters Paintner, The Eyes of the Heart (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2013), 8. [8] Ibid. [9] I suggest that cooking is another art form birthed out of the black experience; anyone who has tasted southern barbeque or soul food would probably agree. [10] Paintner, The Eyes of the Heart, 8. [11] Psalm 137:3 (New Revised Standard Version). [12] Psalm 137:4 (New Revised Standard Version). [13] Nancy L Declaissé-Walford, Rolf A Jacobson, and Beth Laneel Tanner, The Book of Psalms (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 948. [14] Paintner, The Eyes of the Heart, 21.