Today’s word is HOPE.
Scripture Reading: Job 7:6, 19:10
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
and come to their end without hope.
God breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
God has uprooted my hope like a tree.
Breathe new hope into this dry dust.
As a word of introduction to today’s accompanying song, I invite you to listen to this On Being podcast: https://onbeing.org/
Here are a few paragraphs from the transcript:
Ms. Joachim:
It’s so interesting, because music has always been a part of my life, as you mentioned; not just because I’m Haitian, but also because I was very drawn to it, as a child. And I do think that many of my most spiritual moments have been experienced through music, in that it moves you in a way that you oftentimes can’t explain. And I think I find that to be a spiritual experience, myself. And so many of the songs that I’ve been including in this project really do connect back to spirituality, in that many of them — like the one that we just heard, it’s called “Lamize Pa Dous” — is really a song that came over to Haiti from Africa. It was really — it’s a very old song. The rendition that I fell in love with is one by a woman named Toto Bissainthe, who is one of my muses for this project. And I love the spirit of it, and I can’t possibly sing that song and not feel like I’m having a spiritual experience. So it’s still so — I do very much connect music to spirituality in my own life.
Ms. Tippett:
One of the things you’ve talked about is that this part of Africa where the Haitian people — where slaves were brought in the 16th century — that one of the traditions there is Yanvalou. And this was new to me. But you’ve made this striking statement that — you said, “Yanvalou music is to Haiti as the Negro spiritual is to America.”
Ms. Joachim:
It certainly is.
Ms. Tippett:
This is new information.
Ms. Joachim:
Yeah, and I think — again, I think partly why I wanted to start with that song is because it’s so iconically Haitian; but really, the message of that song works in very much the same way as the Negro spiritual, in that, at face value, the words themselves are quite innocent, but, as we know, so many spirituals were sung in cotton fields as a way of spreading messages and as a way of letting people know that there was going to be a way to lift themselves out of misery.
“Lamize Pa Dous” actually translates to “Misery Is Not Sweet.” And it was a way of simply stating that “I’m not well at this moment; and I’m in this place, but I’m not of this place, and I plan to find life elsewhere.” And that, to me, is such a song of revolution, and really is one of the predecessors to the Haitian Revolution and one of many songs that I think did empower and help covert messages be spread among slaves.