Last night was a beautiful evening. A dark, perfectly clear, hole-punched canopy to lean back and stare at, candles and fire that whispered warmly with the light breeze, and deep encouraging community and dialogue with a friend who will be leaving soon—all this propelled with the sweet force of apple pie and spicy tea. We talked about new things the Lord is doing in our lives, about how he is broadening our hearts to graciously encompass those things in and about the Church and the body that have at times driven us to anger and despair and even to wholesale rejection. We shared about the desire to love others and to serve, and also about how easy it is to live for ourselves; to reject others and things simply because of differing versions and locations of spirituality that don’t fit within our paradigms or place in the journey. With “versions” and “locations” I’m not talking about relativism, but rather personal tangible expressions of love and service that emanate into the very function of the church and affect the way ministry and Christianity look.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the blues recently (see my previous passage from James Baldwin), so here’s a poem about the blues by Langston Hughes:

The Weary Blues

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
  I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
  He did a lazy sway . . .
  He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
  O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
  Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
  O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
  "Ain't got nobody in all this world,
    Ain't got nobody but ma self.
    I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
    And put ma troubles on the shelf."

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
  "I got the Weary Blues
    And I can't be satisfied.
    Got the Weary Blues
    And can't be satisfied--
    I ain't happy no mo'
    And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994