“Gospel music is nothing but singing of good tidings — spreading the good news. It will last as long as any music because it is sung straight from the human heart.”

–Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972; widely considered the most influential voice in twentieth century Gospel music.)

I fell in love with words when I was four years old or thereabouts, listening to my mother preach. Magical things seemed to happen in that little coal camp church. It was not uncommon for one or more women in the congregation to get slain in the Holy Spirit. They would jump up on the back of a wooden pew–not nailed to the floor, by the way–and then hop to the back of the next pew, continuing pew by pew until they reached the pew in front. Still standing on the back of the pew, they would pirouette gracefully and continue their pew-hopping journey to the last pew in the back. They were called pew-hoppers.

At that tender age, I did not understand fully what was happening, but the halleluiahs and the weeping and the speaking in Unknown Tongues always seemed to be filled inexplicably with an abundance of joy and with an equal abundance of mystery. I was certain that whatever was happening was because of the words coming from my mother’s mouth.

I became convinced that words had power. I became convinced that words changed lives. And so it was that my love affair with words began right there in that little Pilgrim Holiness Church.

It was strengthened through the Gospel hymns that we sang. One of the earliest that I remember is “I’ll Fly Away,” especially the chorus:

I’ll fly away, Oh Glory
I’ll fly away; (in the
Morning)
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by,
I’ll fly away (I’ll fly away).

I loved the song’s uplifting melody and rhythm, but I could not comprehend the song’s depth. In fact, it perplexed my four-year old mind. I knew the concreteness of death, but I knew not the abstraction of its sting. I had seen death once when I walked up the road to buy some candy from Mrs. Cory, a Black woman who had a little building, hardly bigger than a closet, where she sold candy and soft drinks. As I walked across the wide-planked bridge spanning the creek, I looked on up the knoll past her store toward her house. An ambulance was there, and men were carrying a large-framed Black man on a stretcher. He was covered with a sheet, but he was so tall that his feet were showing. In my innocence and curiosity, I walked over and touched his soles, knowing neither fear nor apprehension. I have never forgotten their softness and their tan whiteness. It was my first encounter with death.

Little wonder, then, that I was perplexed when we sang “I’ll Fly Away.” I had seen a dead man who could not move, and I could not for the life of me figure out how he could fly.

Even without understanding, I liked the song’s happy, handclapping rhythm. More, the song got me to thinking, and it kept me thinking. It didn’t matter that I had no answers.

Other songs confounded me, too. Most of them were songs that the Black congregation sang in their church. Their services, lasting for hours, were filled with lots and lots of singing. After we finished our service, I’d go sit on the steep rocky bank high above their church, enjoying the powerful, thunderous singing of choir and congregation.

It was on that bank that I heard them singing “Jesus Gave Me Water.” As I swayed to the song’s rhythm, I was perplexed by lines repeated over and over again:

Jesus gave me water,
Jesus gave me water,
Jesus gave me water,
And it was not in the well.

We had a well at home, so I knew all about drawing water from the well. I had done it myself. But if Jesus gave water and it was not in the well, where did it come from? What was its source?

Once again, I did not understand. And, once again, it did not matter that I did not understand. The song had a soothing, comfortable melody, and it gave me something to think about long after the singing ended, long after the church windows lowered, long after the entrance doors closed, and long after I rose up from the bank to retrace my steps back home.

As I grew older and my intellectual abilities developed and my life experiences expanded, I gradually understood and appreciated the deeper meanings of the songs that we sang. I came to realize that “Jesus Gave Me Water” is about finding spiritual nourishment and fulfillment through faith in Jesus. I came to realize that “I’ll Fly Away” expresses the belief that one day we will leave earthly challenges and struggles behind when we enter a better place, presumably heaven, filled with eternal peace and joy.

Over time, I came to grow into a heightened awareness of all the nuances of language–imagery and metaphor and paradox and symbolism–that had tugged at my heart and soul through my mother’s preaching and through Gospel singing when I was but a boy of four, too young to understand but not too young to be drawn to the power.

Over time, I came to grow into a heightened awareness of the power of paradoxes that make up the grand tapestry of human existence.

Paradoxes–those statements, situations, or concepts that seem contradictory yet reveal unexpected underlying truths, like the ones that I witnessed in “I’ll Fly Away” and “Jesus Gave Me Water”–appeal to us because they invite us to go beyond surface assumptions and to think deeply. They:

● help us see the nuances of the human experience fraught with emotions and connections that define our lives;

● challenge us to reflect on philosophical matters such as time, existence, truth, and identity; and

● foster rich and robust conversations because they are open to interpretation.

In the Gospel music tradition, paradoxes are as important as they are in their corresponding scriptural passages from the Bible. They:

● invite us to explore the mysteries of faith and spirituality;

● help us find joy in sorrow, strength in weakness, and power in surrender; and

● pump energy into our souls and lift our spirits.

They leave us with memorable and poetic lines that are silently humming deep in our psyche, bursting forth in song sometimes when we least expect them to burst forth, just as “Never Grow Old” did this morning when I awakened to the fresh vitality of a brand-new day:

I have heard of a land
On the far away strand.
‘T is beautiful home of the soul.
Built by Jesus on high,
There we never shall die.
‘T is the land where we’ll never grow old.

I didn’t go looking for “Never Grow Old.” It came looking for me the same way that “He Saw It All (The Blind Man Song)” found its way to me shortly thereafter, a song celebrating the story that a worker heard when he stopped a young man and asked why he was running through town:

I was trying to catch the crippled man.
Did he run past this way?
He was rushing home to tell everyone
What Jesus did today.
And the mute man was telling myself
And the deaf girl he’s leaving to
Answer God’s call.
It’s hard to believe but if you don’t trust me,
Ask the blind man he saw it all.
Ask the blind man he saw it all.

There we have it: one simple stanza from a Gospel song, packed with four monumental paradoxes. It matters not whether we can walk the crosswalk from the paradoxes to the Biblical accounts of Jesus’s miracles, four among many. The paradoxes stand on their own just as they are, and they provide us with a PAUSE BUTTON FOR THE SOUL, beckoning us to be silent and to reflect.

I’ve been cradled in the comforting snares of Gospel songs for more than seven decades. These days, their number is so vast that counting them seems an impossible feat. Nestled within my own dedicated Gospel playlist, they multiply day by day. While pedaling indoors on my bike or journeying through the hours, their melodies shuffle like soothing whispers to my soul. The paradoxes woven into these songs sometimes align me in unwavering belief, and, at other times, they leave me in a corner, wondering and doubting. Yet, always, they provide a wellspring of spiritual convictions from which I can draw. Through every note, they offer solace, always lifting my spirits higher and higher.