When Intervarsity
Press kindly sent me a review copy of Soul Care in African American Practice
by Spiritual Director Barbara Peacock, I joyfully read a paragraph in the
Preface describing the author’s upbringing, which reflected my own nurturing
home and the deeply held convictions that grew from that love. As Dr. Peacock
said:
“I thank God for his faithfulness toward my siblings and me in that he
blessed us with an environment of a loving, caring, and nurturing community,
including our parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins. Such a
foundation in my Christian journey allows me to seek ways to love
unconditionally. Consequently I emphatically embrace the theology of love. I
believe that love covers all kinds of sin. I believe what the world needs more
is love. And is love not the greatest commandment? This is the greatest call: to love.”
Indeed, the certainty
that God
is love sets every troubling thing into perspective and enables us to
discern the responses God wants from us as we ask, “What is the loving thing to do?”
Sadly, many people
from every culture and country lack the loving care and encouragement needed to
be all they’re meant to be, but thankfully, our spiritual growth doesn’t rely
on love received from the human race but from God’s grace. Often, the greater
the obstacles, the greater God graces us with His powerful presence.
As Dr. Peacock points
out in the introductory chapter “African American Spirituality”:
“While in chains, many slaves expressed great faith in God, the only one
who could deliver them from such inhumane circumstances.”
Therefore,
“It was on those slave ships making the Middle Passage that we find the
origins of African American spiritual direction and soul care.”
However, “Many make the assumption that all Africans
first heard about Christ when they came to America. This is far from true.”
“In
fact, the African church fathers contributed to the formative years of
Christianity. St. Augustine of Hippo as well as Egyptian and North African
scholars such as Clement, Origen, Tertullian, and Athanasius are widely
recognized as fathers of the church.”
Later, slavery sorely
challenged Christian beliefs, but stories of faith and spiritual hymns provided
strength. As the author explains:
“The wording, the verbiage, and the tone of slave narratives and
spiritual songs in the African American tradition tell the journey as a story.
Such songs lifted the heart and affirmed hope for a better day. The central
relational focus of the spirituals was God. He was and remains the hope, the
deliverer, and friend.”
In the following
chapters, Dr. Peacock focuses on African American leaders who “have been tenacious in pursuing a
relationship with Yahweh.” One seemingly unlikely person was Dr. Frederick
Douglass, better known as an abolitionist, reformer, and former slave, whose
master’s wife read the Bible to him and helped him learn to read.
“From memory, he began to speak words he heard her say while they read
together. The way they read the Bible together resembles the Latin reading
process called lectio divina, a
slow, thoughtful reading of the text with God’s presence in mind.”
After explaining this ancient spiritual practice,
the author provides “Questions For Reflection” to help us engage more fully.
That section, included in subsequent chapters, too, additionally provides
spiritual direction in talking with God, hearing from God, visually reflecting
on the Lord, and praying.
“As a result of learning to read the Bible, Douglass became a well-known
intellectual in his community and beyond. Reading was the fundamental skill that
prepared him to live a life that transformed not only himself but also others.
For him reading was not merely glancing over a text but meditating on what he
heard, which eventually equipped him to impact millions.”
The next chapter,
“Spiritual Direction and Prayer,” highlights the soul care of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., whose “life of contemplative
prayer made him an effective spiritual leader.” The author goes on to say:
“It would have been impossible for Dr. King to fulfill the mandate on
his life without the assurance of God’s unconditional love for himself and all
humanity…. Thus, as a leader, he was called by God to lead in a movement for
freedom that was centered in love – that is, Christ-centered love. Such love is
the kind Dr. King allowed the Spirit to form in him amid racial discord. With
such love, he loved God and his people to the extent he was willing to die for
what he believed.”
In the chapter
“Meditation and Contemplation,” we learn of the “conscientious decision to speak silently for her civil rights” that
Mrs. Rosa Parks made before getting on that Montgomery bus. Having been brought
up in a Christian home, she spent much time seeking God and developing the soul
care needed to equip her for the task at hand.
“During the civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks needed the supernatural
peace of God as she led the people God called her to serve. She understood the
cost of developing and nurturing God’s peace within her that would equip her as
a spiritual leader. Because of her faithfulness, God graciously provided her
peace in the midst of adversity. In order to maintain and abide in this peace,
Mrs. Park’s challenge was to keep her mind fixed on God.”
Throughout this
enlightening book, Dr. Barbara Peacock focuses on the practices of ten African
American leaders, whose companionship with God enabled them to do the work to
which they had been called. By tending their own souls through prayer,
meditation on God’s Word, and reliance on the Holy Spirit, they could then provide
spiritual direction to others.
In “Conclusion,” the
author calls us to re-call:
“The journey of all people (regardless of color or ethnicity) began in
Genesis. The inclusivity of the Spirit of God is seen in the divine entity of
life and the breath that all humanity shares…. All creatures, whether black,
white, brown, red, or yellow, are communicative beings designed for the glory
of God. All peoples are created to worship and to be in holy communion with our
Creator.”
May we all enter into this
intimate relationship with the Lord and express God’s love to others in Jesus’
Name.
Mary Harwell Sayler,
©2020, poet-writer, and lifelong lover of God’s people and God’s Word
…