My Gospel Truth

When I wanted to name a program, "The Gospel Truth,"  I was not thinking of the words in the most literal sense.  I was thinking about truth more generally.  When my daughter Lauren was in second grade, she had a vocabulary test and one of the words was, "truth."  Her initial answer was, "what really happened."  She must have considered her answer again and used a caret to insert "you think" after what....so it read, "what you think really happened." I have never found another definition of truth that I think is more accurate.

When I was 19, I was in nursing school in downtown Detroit near where the DMC is now located.  I went there in September after the 1967 riots.  The struggle happened just a few blocks away.  That first year changed my life in so many ways.  It was a time of social upheaval and personal growth into new ways of being.  One Sunday morning, a friend of mine and I walked just two blocks to a small Black Church.  We sat inconspicuously in the back but as the service continued with hymns and praise, I felt something new, an awakening of Spirit that I had never experienced in my years as a Catholic Christian.  I could almost feel the ground move below my feet and a very real fullness of heart.

My next thought was to wonder.  Wonder how this music came to be, why it resonated with me in such an intimate way? What connected the two?  Through years of reading and listening, I have a partial answer.  I have read many African American writers such as Zora Neal Hurston, "Their I Eyes Were Watching God,"  "The Slave Narratives," The Confessions of Nat Turner by Gray,  Te-Nhesi Coates, "The Water Walkers" and  "Middle Passage" by Charles Johnson and more.  What has struck me, is the resiliency of the human spirit against all odds.  For me, this resiliency comes through and touches my very being in Gospel Music.  

Gospel music is so moving because it speaks directly to the soul. It’s born out of struggle and hope, sorrow and joy—rooted in the Black church experience, where music became a lifeline for survival, praise, and resistance.  It tells the truth. Gospel doesn’t shy away from pain. It names grief, fear, doubt—and still dares to rejoice.  It’s embodied. The rhythm, the harmony, the call and response—it pulls you in. You don’t just hear it, you feel it.  It’s communal. Whether in church pews or concert halls, gospel is about togetherness. It invites everyone to lift their voice.  It connects. To ancestors. To faith. To something bigger than yourself.  It transforms. Even in my darkest hour, a gospel song can stir hope, shift my spirit, and send me back out stronger.  Some of my favorites singers are Sweet Honey and the Rock, Canton Spirituals, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Aretha Franklin and anywhere Motown meets Gospel.

This is what I think of when I think, "Gospel Truth."  It is a truth contained in the human spirit, voice and rhythm.

At its best, gospel music doesn’t just entertain—it heals.

 

The River, the Color Blue, and the Gold Beads 

    Janet Margaret Bell, 10/15/1924-01/10/2023 lived her life joyfully.  Her desires were few but those she held were not a requirement for happiness.  She welcomed new situations and people with a contagious curiosity always looking for the good in people and situation..  That doesn't mean that she was never sad or disappointed.  She would have what she called, "pity parties" and then move on after a good cry.  She recommended to everyone, a tear duct flushing when necessary.  

    She cherished the gold beads and every picture from the time her mother passed until the day I removed them from her neck as my sister and I prepared her body for her final journey.  That was except for the one week they went missing.

    Mom was living at American House Assisted Living near me in Charlevoix, MI.  One day she called, frantic, "My beads are missing!!!.  I can't find them anywhere."  As I drove over, I knew how important they were.  She and her sister had split the necklace in half when their mother died and each had completed their necklaces with new gold beads.  We all knew the story of how our Great-grandfather Kleihower had purchased them for his wife at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901.  It was the very place that President McKinley was assassinated. When anyone commented about the beads she would launch into the story.  

    As I drove I could not imagine how they would have been removed and then lost.  Mom's eyesight was seriously affected by macular degeneration and the clasp required sight and agility having a double catch system.  She was also affected by a worsening short-term memory loss.  (She liked to say, "my memory is getting shorter." 

When I arrived she was visibly upset and I began searching her small apartment, over, under, between, behind and in every bit of space.  Nothing.  I went out to the director because I knew someone had to have helped her get the necklace off but I could not imagine why.  I tried not to think that anyone who worked there could stoop so low as to steal it.  She knew nothing but would pass the word for everyone to keep an eye out.  I had done all I could and was heart sick about the loss of one of the most precious items my mother owned.  She had long ago instructed us to divide the beads between her 6 grand daughters when the time came. They would skip the daughters as her sister, Lois had also done.  

    The trouble wasn't over because Mom could not remember from one day to the next.  I got the same frantic call every day, sometimes twice in a day.   I would go over and search again and comforter her.  "We'll find them."  We prayed to St. Anthony.  I thought of telling her the beds were out being repaired.  I had been on line researching a necklace that would maybe feel like the missing necklace.  She could reach up and touch it and think nothing of the loss.  

    About a week later, I stopped by and saw that the missing gold necklace was there, on  mom's neck in all its glory.  "Oh mom, you have your gold necklace on!!!"  She answers, "Of course, I never take it off."  She had no memory of the recent loss and search.  When I asked the administrator, who found the necklace.  She had no idea either......if she did, she was not saying.  More grateful than wanting to get to the bottom of the theft?, I pursued it no further.

    Recently, while spending some time with a local member of the Anishinaabe Band of Odawa, he mentioned the almost universal presence of "little people" who populate stories in Native Cultures across all regions of our country.  I remembered my mom talking about the Lutron's and Pipsiwas (little people) who could be blamed for unexplainable mischief such as missing objects when we were kids..  That is the only explanation that makes sense to me.

Blue

Blue

She smiles and turns to the water's edge, wades up to her knees,

fingertips gently combing the surface, welcoming the wetness.

Lifting and bending knee and waist,  

her body propels forward into an arc that pierces the surface.  

She disappears below.

Ripples mark the spot and sparkling reflections follow the form below

With a flowing motion she rolls and wet face emerges  in the setting sun.

Reborn in River-water, she smiles, turns, swims with graceful strokes trailing memories that glow in the wake.

Written on the first anniversary of my mother's death, Jan. 10, 2024