Nana Mouskouri is amazing, but not so much on Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child. Seriously, Nana? Please don't try that again. Loved you on Song for Liberty in Spanish - just before Chile's return to democracy - , but not on this.
Marianne Anderson is great, of course, but not as great as Jackson on this song. Mahalia owns it.
Now why am I attracted to this song - or rather this blending of two songs? I call it a blending of two songs rather than a medley. Most medleys are too obviously, well, medleys - two or more songs thrown together in an imperfect oneishness. This Summertime/Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child is a perfect blending of two songs into one. So, why this blending, then? Why am I drawn to it?
1.) For one thing, I am a motherless child, even though I am quite adult. My mom passed away last May, and I am not sure how to grieve for her. It's a long story. At the end she was very ill, and ready to meet Jesus face to face. So, I am happy for her now. There is more, but those thoughts and feelings run too deep to express right now.
So, they find some expression through this song.
2.) We are part of a missionary organization that works with orphans, widows, poor families, and more. My husband and son-in-law spent most of the month of August in Africa visiting our colleagues. One of the photos that he brought home has haunted me. It is of a group of children with beautiful smiling faces.
The back story is that these children are AIDS orphans that some of our colleagues care for. Even more than that, these children themselves also HIV positive. Words fail me.
3.) I have been thinking a lot lately about motherhood. I hope to be able to verbalize some of that in my Lilith series. For now I will just say that my tradition, which is mainline Evangelical, we don't seem to have a mother or a father - a patriarch or a matriarch. Now I'm being weird again, but in my faith tradition I feel somewhat like a motherless child.
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