Tom Wait sings a great bit of 12-bar blues—a song called “Get Behind the Mule.” How were the blues born? The answer
lies deep within African musics that are vast and varied, and within unique
experiences of African descendants in America.
What were those experiences? Most of them included suffering
throughout the period in which the blues were born. The blues cry the labor
pains of a community in physical, emotional and often spiritual agony. The
weight of oppression on body, mind and spirit crushed the conscience of African-Americans
to the breaking point, and gave birth to the soul in song. In a state of
desperation the mind took flight in an exquisitely forlorn cry, a wail that escaped
the boundaries of time, space and matter and brought the lament of the heart to
the ears of mankind and of God.
The human voice that engages in working with the pain,
instead of against it, exudes the beauty of the blues.
Just imagine the mule driver. Exhaustion and dehydration are
constant, nagging pains throughout endless days under the sun. Feet ache as
they plod over the fields, ankles contorting over unseen rocks that lie just
beneath freshly excavated earth. The stench of rotting mules, worked to death, stings
the nostrils and threatens the driver with thoughts of his own mortality.
Hunger twists the gut and torments the mind. Fear reigns as the foreman
tramples through the mass of humanity on his lunging horse. Whips crack to keep
men and mules in line and in time with the agenda of their masters.
One thing remains unharnessed—the song of the mule driver.
The rhythm of his own feet, the cadence of the mule’s, the jingle of harnesses
punctuated by the snapping of leather and the clatter of stones, all accompany
a simple refrain. The mule driver’s mind sinks deep into the layers of rhythm
and settles there, rocked by a lullaby, as it were. He croons to himself. The
words and notes drip out of his mouth like honey—so sweet, so delicious. His
work begins to take on new meaning. Every painful step is no longer taken in
service to the demands of the overseer. He’s driving to manifest the song. If
he falters, the elusive chorus will evaporate into thin air…so he’s pressing
in, pressing on to maintain his stake in the virtual ensemble.
The fields disappear. The pain is part of the performance. The
driver and his song create a world truer and more tangible than the
circumstances surrounding both.
In life, longing is a constant.
Pain is a given. Suffering is ever present—the kind we bring upon ourselves and
the kind inflicted upon us. No change we can make can outmaneuver this
inevitability. The experiences we have in time, matter and space are not our
overseers. Figuratively speaking, the field, the mule, the plow, and the foreman
are provided by our Creator to help us find our song. Our audience is the
living Christ, the One who transcends the boundary between time, space, matter and
infinity.
“Get Behind the Mule” explores pain that
slaps us upside the head and causes us say, “How on earth did I get in this deep?
How could I possibly get so far off track?” Pain from needs, longings and
expectations that remain unfulfilled; pain that makes us desperate for help and
a way out; pain other people put themselves in that makes us shake our heads in
disbelief; pain we bring upon ourselves by our own wrong-doing; pain of
answering for those wrongs and paying the price of justice and restitution; pain that can't be explained or rationalized--pain must drive us to our Creator.
When Paul was troubled, in prison and vexed by false teachers, he wrote:
So
how am I to respond? I’ve decided that I really don’t care about their motives,
whether mixed, bad, or indifferent. Every time one of them opens his mouth,
Christ is proclaimed, so I just cheer them on!
And
I’m going to keep that celebration going because I know how it’s going to turn
out. Through your faithful prayers and the generous response of the Spirit of
Jesus Christ, everything he wants to do in and through me will be done. I can
hardly wait to continue on my course. I don’t expect to be embarrassed in the
least. On the contrary, everything happening to me in this jail only serves to
make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They
didn’t shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I’m Christ’s messenger; dead,
I’m his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can’t lose. (Philippians 1:18-22,
The Message)
Here’s
the summary of living: Christ!
I’m
His. I’m made for Him, and I am with Him forever. Rejoicing, I go on; I get
behind the mule and plow. Some days we feel like we’re getting the worst of it.
That will never change. We can raise our fist to the demands. We can slump in
defeat at the challenges. We can grieve the loss until our hearts break, or we can
sing.
Zephaniah
3:16-17 says,
Fear
not;
let
not your hands grow weak.
The Lord your God is
in your midst,
a
mighty one who will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
he
will quiet you by his love;
He will exult over you with loud singing (ESV).
If you're like me, you're probably hurting. Let the song God sings over you translate the clamor of
everyday life into a rhythm with which you can sing. Yoked to Him, you can throw
your weight into the traces and drive through the pain. Everything you are
experiencing will coalesce into the fabric of the song. If you hesitate or shrink
back you, you will likely be drug down the row rather than creating it.
2
Corinthians 4:16-18 says,
So
we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is
being renewed day by day. For this
light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory
beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to
the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the
things that are unseen are eternal.
When
agony is translated to song,
you are living the eternal in the now. I want that quality of life for
you. I strive to find it myself—often failing—and often choosing to act
out in
anger, spite or despair rather than operating in trust, cooperation and
hope.
“Get Behind the Mule and Plow” ends with these words:
Pin
your ear to the wisdom post
Pin your eye to the line
Never let the weeds get higher
Than the garden
Always keep the sapphire in your mind
Always keep a diamond in your mind
You may be overwhelmed by weeds, but just below their sprawling
tentacles lies the beauty of a garden—true friendships, new opportunities
to express your gifts and abilities, new people and places to experience,
and a life! Life filled by the goodness
of your gracious Heavenly Father.
Every
day is another row. From this side, it might not look like much and it might
feel like even less. Trust it holds the eternal weight of glory, and throw
yourself into it with joy.
I’m
going to try to do the same according to the power of the Holy Spirit at work
within me.
