“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows but Jesus. Oh, nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, glory, hallelujah.”
“While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay, there are frail forms fainting at the door; Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say ‘Oh! Hard times come again no more.’”
No one can ever say when trouble will knock on our door. Over the past few years the U.S. experienced phenomenal growth. The economy jumped yearly, housing prices climbed, and our 401k’s predicted an easy retirement. Yet somehow trouble continues to make its unwelcome appearance. During the 1990’s, another time of prosperity, the famous “dot-com” bubble dissolved many aspirations of wealth. Economically, this event was short lived, yet we certainly can’t forget the wake up call on that morning of September 11, 2001. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Pain, sorrow, loss..familiar guests at our table.
Our current economic times is often compared to the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Across the entire world economies shook to their core. In the U.S., unemployment soared to over 25% by 1931 while the GNP dropped by 40% by 1934. Families across the nation lost jobs, homes, and lives. For over 10 years the U.S. wrestled with the morass of conflicting causes and solutions. Only the unifying threat of World War II forced the U.S. into growth.
From the end of the U.S. Revolutionary War until 1865 our country expanded and grew, geographically, economically, and militarily. The population grew from a little less than 4 million to over 31 million. Yet, hidden behind those impressive, often “God Ordained” claimed numbers lies a darkness. Geographic growth came at the expense of indigenous natives. Much of the economic might of the U.S. was built on the backs of slavery. The census only reflects white males. Children, women, slaves, and native Americans were not counted. Oh! Hard times come again no more.
Every person and every culture experiences pain and loss. With that pain comes the deep need to express and release it. From the early Greek tragic choruses, the Hebrew Psalms, down to American blues, the arts and music have provided a catharsis. The slaves found throughout the American south knew this instinctively. As Joe Carter states in an interview on Speaking of Faith “Not able to experience the normal world, they found a door into into a world where their tears were wiped away.” The 5000 plus spirituals, although often lamenting the troubles and pains of the world, always pointed to hope. There is a secret power in this music, not the power to take away the pain, but to provide a way of embracing the suffering and in order to move forward. In the same interview, Joe Carter talks about “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.”
“As a teenager, I met a woman by the name of Jessie Anthony who was, I think she was over 80 when I met her. And somehow, she was coming to our church. And we young people would go to her house to collect her, to bring her to church and so on. Well, here was an African-American woman whose parents were slaves in Virginia. And she sang the spirituals. And she’d heard me sing in church, so she just sort of took me under her wing. And she was going to teach me these songs. And she had a suitcase full of stories that she’d collected over the years of the spirituals. And she would tell me, she’d say, ‘Child, when they sang this song, this is what they were talking about, you know? A lot of people don’t know this.’ And she had stories for every song…One of the stories I seem to remember that she told, it was about — Emancipation Day had come. And there was a group of former slaves now on an island off the coast of South Carolina. And my parents were from South Carolina, all my family. And they were waiting for the emissary of the government to arrive in his little boat to tell them that they had received the deeds to their land, because the government had promised them not only freedom, but 40 acres and a mule.
And so this was going to be a great, wonderful day. And the former slaves had gathered together on the island waiting with bated breath. And finally, they saw the boat of the officer approaching. And they could tell, even from the distance, that his face was not happy and his countenance was somewhat sad. And they said there was a groan that just came from the crowd. And one of the older women from the crowd just stood up and began to make up a song on the spot. She sang, (singing) “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows but Jesus. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Glory, hallelujah.”
And then she spoke, looking to the people around her, she said, (singing) “Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down. Oh, yes, Lord. Sometimes, I’m almost level to the ground. Oh, yes, Lord. Oh, nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows but Jesus. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Glory, hallelujah.”
She looked at the people standing by, and she said, (singing) “Although you see me going along so.” And they answered, (singing) “Oh, yes, Lord.” “I’ve got my trials here below.” And they answered, (singing) “Oh, yes, Lord. Oh, nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows but Jesus. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Glory, hallelujah.””
This is music that, as the late conductor and sometimes preacher Robert Shaw said “These words are magic to me, and their melodies, shaped and worn by Niagaras and years of tears, are as perfect as anything I know in music.” and finds “a directness and a fervor of utterance and humility which involves man’s nobility and, to me, a spark of divinity.”
In a song written in 1854, but just as well could speak to the 1930’s or today, Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More” was a favorite on both sides of the Civil War and popular through the U.S. and Europe. Writings from the Center for American Music Foster Hall Collection at the University of Pittsburgh state “Rather than writing nostalgically for an old South (it was, after all, the present day for him), or trivializing the hardships of slavery, Foster sought to humanize the characters in his songs, to have them care for one another, and to convey a sense that all people—regardless of their ethnic identities or social and economic class—share the same longings and needs for family and home. He instructed white performers of his songs not to mock slaves but to get their audiences to feel compassion for them. In his own words, he sought to “build up taste…among refined people by making words suitable to their taste, instead of the trashy and really offensive words which belong to some songs of that order.””
Worship at First United Methodist Church in Alexandria will always be for God rather than ourselves. Yet I can’t help but think that a loving God found in the person of Jesus would not want us to corporately bring together our pain and sorrows. Again quoting Robert Shaw, worship must first and foremost bring a sense of mystery and an admission of pain. We all bring each Sunday spoken and deeply unspoken pain and sorrow, coupled with not only a mystery of God but more intimately the mystery of the why of pain and sorrow.
For performances for both “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVKKRzemX_w and for “Hard Times Come Again No More” see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIalvXTPyA0&feature=related
