Today’s Word from Trinity Keyboardist Sheila Weidendorf…
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way
O sisters (brothers/mothers/fathers/sinners), let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
O sisters, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray
“Down in the River” was brought to our collective consciousness with the release of the 2000 Cohen Brothers film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Performed in the film by folk sensation Alison Krauss, this “old-timey” folk song took us all under its spell, now performed by choirs of all kinds – including the TLC Choir, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir – and many soloists and groups, including The King’s Singers.
The song, however – a supplication for deliverance by baptism – has been around a long time. While its tone and tenor lend itself well to Appalachian folk and religious song styles, “Down to the River” came out of the slave song tradition. While its exact origin is not determined, it first made its “official” appearance in the 1867 publication, “Slave Songs of the United States.” The lyrics of this rendition are slightly different, though the tune is essentially the same:
As I went down in the valley to pray,
Studying about that good old way,
When you shall wear the starry crown,
Good Lord, show me the way.
O mourner, let’s go down, let’s go down, let’s go down,
O mourner, let’s go down,
Down in the valley to pray.
It was also included in the 1880 publication, “The [Fisk] Jubilee Singers, With Their Songs.” Earlier 20th century recordings were made by the Price Family Singers, the Delta Big Four, Lead Belly, Doc Watson and even Arlo Guthrie. But it was undoubtedly the O Brother, Where Art Thou? Alison Krauss version that catapulted the song to modern fame.
Every culture, and practically every religion has water or other purification rituals. From the traditional Finnish sauna to the Japanese onsen to the Native American inipi (sweat lodge) to the ritual snan Ganga purification baths in India – everywhere water in one way or another is used to purify and renew body, mind, and spirit. And why not? 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered in water. The human body is comprised overall of about 60% water. According to H.H. Mitchell, “Journal of Biological Chemistry 158,” the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are a watery 31%.
Further, water exists in three states… solid, liquid, and vapor (though I very recently read somewhere that a fourth state has been observed!). We can live a long time without food, but without water, we are doomed. Water rights are among the most fundamental on earth – and there has been no shortage of disaster when, for example, private companies take over local water sources leaving people high and dry. Remove a people from their water source and life is immediately and severely compromised. And what of situations like Flint, Michigan or Fukushima, Japan? Where water is tainted, struggle and ill effects to personal and collective health is sure to follow.
Conversely, what is of greater delight than crystal clear, pure water sipped from a mountain stream, or a cool dip in a river or lake on a hot day, or the satisfying hose-rinsing of muddy garden feet before going inside for some fresh-squeezed lemonade? Water is life, after all. No wonder everyone, everywhere has a ritual or a rite or a festival or a ceremony featuring that essential bonding of two hydrogen atoms to one atom of oxygen!
Water abounds, too, in the stories of the Christ. He walked on water, changed water into wine, washed the feet of his own disciples and was, himself, baptized in the waters of the river Jordan. Water must have been so very precious in the arid regions in which he grew up and later ministered. Water was life indeed. How very fitting that water is central to our rites of renewal in baptism?!? (Anyone who has ever had a good healing cry under a hot shower knows immediately of its curative properties!)
Water is precious, is life, is soft and yielding yet can carve rock. Water always finds the available opening, always finds its own level. Water rushes and spirals, ebbs and flows, finds the path of least resistance and levels the plain as rivers run to the sea. Likewise, we are precious. We, too, can learn the beautiful, artful surrender of water as we recognize the Great Sea in every drop of ourselves, of each other – each of us a precious portent of the great Source and Sustainer of all life, the great wave reflected in the droplet.
Our version here features my daughter, Ada Rose Faith-Feyma, with my humble attempts at adding a little harmony – Click HERE to listen.
Sheila Weidendorf
