Response to Barbara Holmes, pp. 50 – 51

“…exposing the complexity and chaos of a universe that sanctions both pleasure and pain. If the journey is as liminal as it is actual, the moan is the vehicle that carries the afflicted community toward transcendence. James Noel notes that the moan articulates the sighs and groans of the spirit. It is the very essence of protest and prayer, a ‘spirit song,’ as it were, in rhythmic sway with the lurching of slave ships and terrorized souls. It is a sound that rides the crest of communal longing and angst. As Noel correctly suggests, no other sound could adequately express the ‘incommunicability’ of the Middle Passage.”

Barbara Holmes makes frequent reference to some contemplative practices of the black church being ones of noise and not as is expected ones of silence and reflection. A joining together of spirit in a state of ecstasy and joy expressed in song and rhythm that touches the heart and soul. Uplifting. Invigorating. It manages to make manifest that which is ineffable and incommunicable. The passage above however is, I think, speaking to a revisiting of a deep suffering that needs some form of closure. The Middle Passage was essentially the slave ships. On the slave ships the depth of the suffering was unimaginable.

When it is heard expressed it touches a chord in people that resonates with whatever suffering they are enduring or have endured. It may be rooted in a specific negative cultural experience, however that does not limit its applicability across a much broader spectrum of grief, troubles, strife, misery that tends to be part of the human condition. The soul songs arising from the disconnected and disembodied black culture created a new identity of being lost and forsaken. The songs helped to reconnect them and to give meaning and hope to their despair. After that generation passed and the memories of their past slave experiences faded, their suffering did not end and has not ended to this day. The mode of suffering is what has changed. The emotional scars born from suffering remain long after the passing of the experience.

The blues resonate with all of us because none of us are immune to suffering. The question then becomes one of healing. Does the musical expression of the blues reflecting those long-ago moans of agony ameliorate suffering? Or does it cause them to be simply scabs picked at to cause them to recreate the memory of suffering? Does it feel good to feel bad? I don’t think so. I think that the root of the moan is one of soothing and nurturing. An audible stroking of the soul that speaks to compassion.