A Poem and the Thought of Song

NEGRO

I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.

I have been a slave:
Ceasar told me to keep his door steps clean.
I brushed the boots of Washington.

I've been a worker:
Under my hand the pyramids arose.
I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.

I've been a singer:
All the way from Africa to Georgia
I carried my sorrow songs.
I made ragtime.

I've been a victim:
The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.
They lynch me still in Mississippi.

I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.

Langston Hughes

This is the Poem that grabbed my heart today. Read it again and think about it! It is history and heart, a flow of words that musically portray an incredible sorrow and a subtle sense of pride. I think it is powerful to see how blacks though rich with a history of abuses have claim to great accomplishments. ie the Pyramids, The Woolworth Building, ragtime, jazz... it goes on and on. They have been the strength that raised equality and conviction inside of there abusers. There sorrow songs have turned to praises and there slavery into a liberty that has worth and life so much deeper than ours. They have fingure prints everywhere! I know that racism and slavery are still a huge problem and factor in society but I love this picture of perseverance. Inside of the great pain and injustice come to the surface some of the most compassionate, immensely strong hearts. Out of the gr owning is birthed the most majestic of choruses.

My thought process is such that I am craming my head with peotry and stories, and the verses of the bible hoping that they will poor out in song. Ps 126:5-6 "Those who sow tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to so, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him." There have been many tears sown this past season in my family. There has been a shaking of everything we have known and I believe that we are going to reap some incredible songs of joy out of it. I was listening to an awesome man of the Lord named Creflo Dollor last night and he said, "if you need a house then get out there and plant house seed. You need a job, plant job seed." We have an inordinate amount of seed found in the bible if we will get into it and get it. Then pray it or plant it! act like you belive it! live it out and then you will reap a harvest. I am praying for a harvest of songs. The bible says through the tears that have been sown that they are coming so I am going to sing!