Thomas A. Dorsey was an African American musician. He made his living as a roving gospel player and writing music for church revivals and nightclub acts. His nightclub tunes were well received and colorful – with titles like, “The Way You Move that Thang,” and he became quite successful on the nightclub circuit touring and writing songs. He also wrote Gospel tunes throughout his life, and served as the music director of a Baptist church here in Chicago for 40 years.
To make ends meet he toured constantly. It was during the depression, and it took great effort to make ends meet as an artist during those times. The year was 1932, and his wife was about to give birth to their first child. He wanted to be home, but he knew his family needed the money: he went on tour playing. He thought everything would be OK, until the Western Union telegram came. Your wife died, it read. He was consumed with grief – not knowing if their child had lived or died. When he returned home he learned that he had a baby boy. But days later the child died too.
For a long time Thomas was at sea. He was consumed with grief and angry with God. The week after his wife and child died his close friend was consoling him, and he left Thomas alone with a piano – Thomas had been unable to play music in his grief. He sat at the piano and fingered the keys and that night this tune came out of a shattered Thomas Dorsey.
Precious Lord, Take my hand, lead me on, let me stand. I am tired. I am weak, I am worn; through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light, take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.
How do we go on when huge holes are torn in the fabric of our lives? When we lose a loved one – when they die or leave us. When our health fails us. When we lose our livelihood. When some event comes along and tears away part of what we have, our lives are left with a gaping hole that once was woven fine. That torn place can be large or small, but everything has changed. The wind can blow freely through the open space, and the torn ends of the ripped threads lie helplessly, exposing the place that once connected the fabric and made it whole.
At times like this our hearts weep. Our minds scream. Our bodies are twisted with the pain of emotion. It is this state of mind that brought pen to paper the night that Thomas Dorsey wrote his famous hymn.
Somewhere deep within he calls out for succor. He calls out to be held and carried. He asks to be led. He doesn’t even know how he will get home without some help. Without being led and guided and helped to stand and survive. We all have a point in our lives when the spiritual pain is so great that some deep place within us has called out, has wailed, “Help me!”
These are the moments when it is always possible to remake our lives. And it is also possible to slide headlong into disaster. To lose sight of all hope - and utterly lose our way. Moments like these are pivotal, and Thomas Dorsey knew it. His song is his calling out for what he needs – Help me! Lead me! Hold me!
We all need to be helped, to be led, to be held, when so much, too much, has been torn from our lives. We need help because we are not the same. We will never be the same. We need companions to care for us while we heal and chose how to tend to the hole in our lives. We like so much to rely on what we know and understand. The problem with this is that at times of crisis we don’t even know ourselves. All of our interior life is changed because of the tear in the fabric of our lives. We feel like we can’t go on – like we need help – we need something more because we do. We need to stop and learn the ways things have shifted inside of us. We need to relearn who we are.
At moments like this it is especially important for us liberal religious folk to understand that we do not simply throw ourselves on the mercy of what is known and present. There are dimensions of life beyond the bounds of this time and place, that are resources for us. It is how we, each of us here and each person who ever lived or will live, is connected into an enormous tapestry. We are woven through time and space together. And our hole effects others. And can be effected by others. And wisdom rises up from unknown origins to guide us.
We need one another. That is OK. We need more that we sometimes have ourselves. That is OK. We need help. That is OK.
As Unitarian Universalists we have a few resources available to us when we are faced with some terribly loss. We need to think. And feel. And act. We need to use our heads and our hearts and our hands.
When something is ripped from our lives we are stopped dead in our tracks. And if we are not, we should be. Something is gone and everything is different. We need to stop and be in the present moment. We need to let that pain and loss in. We need to acknowledge something, maybe most everything is different.
Once we have stilled ourselves and paid this kind of attention – given our loss the respect it deserves. Then we need to look around. What endures? Maybe it isn’t much. But what endures? What core values are still intact? What understanding of our lives remain? To whom are we still connected ?
I have a Catholic colleague. When I met him he was in his 70’s. His health was quite poor, and he suffered a fair amount as a result. I was drawn to him because he ran so deep – he exuded an immense soulfulness. He has a quiet presence. And when I was with him he had a way of making me feel like the wisdom of the ages could unfold before me if I just sat there with him. He calmed me. I loved talking with him. I admired him. I wished I could be more like him. I run at this high pace – I live with a certain intensity and I so long for the quiet depths this man possessed.
One day, when I was feeling especially bold, I asked him about this presence he had that so drew me to him. Where did these soulful depths come from? The story unfolded. He told me about being a young priest and being full of energy and spirit. He talked about tearing around all over the city being involved in many, many things. I assumed he was going to tell me that he grew out of it pretty quickly. But such was not the case. He talked about his happiness with that life. He told me of the real satisfaction he had found with being active and working hard and quickly over the many decades of his long career.
Then he said, “5 years ago I had one of the largest parishes in my charge. I had an active, full life. My work was very intense and I loved it. It was rewarding. I was helping to fulfill God’s promise in the world.
When I got sick I had to stop working. I tried to go back after a while but I found I couldn’t handle the pressures of my large parish any more. I didn’t work at all for a time, and I wondered if I would ever again have meaningful work. I became quite depressed. After a while I decided to reorient my life to pastoral visiting, instead of running a whole parish. I didn’t have a choice really, and it was hard for a while. It wasn’t how I saw myself. And for a long time I stayed depressed. But now I have found that I love this work. Something new has come to be – in the quiet open spaces I have now I find such a depth of faith and a growing spiritual wisdom. (My slower pace has allowed this to grow and) I love what I do now. It is rewarding. But it took a long time before I saw it that way. Finally, I have remade my life.”
The losses we encounter create open spaces that allow new things to grow. That does not mean we will ever be happy for the loss we suffer. But it does mean that over time, with our effort and with help, we can remake our lives and find a way to feel whole, even though we know that part of our lives was torn. Wholeness comes as we patch the holes in our lives – we lose something precious to us – our work, our youth, our health, our loved one – and in that loss how we understand ourselves had to change. What takes us to that place of restoration, to that new sense of wholeness, is our imagination. Once we know how we are, once we have looked inside and acknowledged the hole in our lives, we envision for ourselves a new self-understanding, and begin to live with that new self-understanding. And a sense of wholeness is reborn.Thomas Dorsey lived to 94 years. He spent 40 years as the music director of a Baptist church here in Chicago. There were 60 years before him – years of unknown joy and pain – when he penned Precious Lord. His faith carried him through the dark, and his imagination led him into a new future. May we too be guided and held and loved throughout our lives, especially through those dark times. And may we be able to remake our lives again and again – that we might greet the current day with fresh eyes and a new sense of possibility – and a deepening sense of that which endures.
So may it be. Amen.