Contradictions of Life | October 4, 2026 | Rev. Dr. Kathryn Benton
The opening music, an African American Spiritual has the following lyrics, in part:
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
The time is drawing nigh.
Children, don't get weary,
Children, don't get weary,
Children, don't get weary,
'Til your work is done.
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning
The time is drawing nigh.
In a Christian context, this is clearly about being ready for Jesus. The broader meaning is that we must prepare ourselves for what is coming…by taking care…of our lamps…that which illuminates our way…and allows us to continue the work we are being called to do. This song jumped into my head last week when I visited Harvard Divinity School and I cannot dislodge it. I had also read the deep and nourishing sermon from Rev. Jones-Bey…reminding us that the contradictions of life are neither final nor ultimate. And it was these contradictions that I seem to deal with on a daily basis and that Thurman addressed throughout his life.
These contradictions show up again and again, once we are aware of them. This is a topic which one of my current teachers, Bayo Akolomafé has really helped me with. I have found, through both his classes and the ongoing research of Dr. Howard Thurman, that this is our work…a work that has always been part of our history…the civil/human rights movement included. It is the illumination of realities that the status quo would prefer were hidden. A most appropriate illustration of this illumination is the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, often associated with the song, This Little Light of Mine…
Hamer’s life began on October 6, 1917, when she was born into a family of sharecroppers in Mississippi. She was infected with polio as a child, which limited her ability to do field work. She was hence assigned an addition role as record keeper. This opened her eyes to the true injustice and barbarity of the system of which she was a part. Her continued experience of poverty, labor exploitation and racial terror prepared her for her role in the civil rights movement…she was prepared for the fight. After trying to register to vote and experiencing voting suppression and intimidation, she testified before the Congressional Credentials Committee. Despite the president’s attempt to silence this testimony, it was picked up by multiple media outlets and had a profound influence on the fight for voting/civil rights.
Hamer was then the first Black woman to run for Congress in 1964. Also in 1964, she delivered her famous words I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired at a rally. Speaking alongside Malcolm X, she described the discrimination, suppression and violence that Black people faced in Mississippi. She demanded equal rights and economic justice for her people, not just in Mississippi, but throughout the United States.
The unveiling of these realities was a profound example of what I am talking about…the contradictions of life…the full picture of this nation. Since that time, it seems that these contradictions continue to be hidden from view. I learned recently of another story, of another Black woman, Henrietta Lacks. Many of you may know her story, but some of you may not. She was a Black woman born in 1920 and died at just 31 years of age on October 4, 1951. She gave birth to 5 children and then experienced some abdominal pain that led to being hospitalized. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer and began treatment. During the course of treatment her doctor took samples of the cancerous cells, since they did not look like anything he’d seen before. He also took a sample of healthy tissue, all without the knowledge or permission of his patient. He found that these cells kept multiplying, unlike other samples he had tested and he proceeded to send them off to others throughout the country. Upon her death, more cells were harvested without the knowledge and permission of her family. These cells were called HeLa cells and still exist today. Now, the profound contradiction here is that these cells have helped develop the polio vaccine, as well as treatment for cancer, AIDS, Parkinson’s, as well as other diseases. Her descendants were asked in 1975 for blood samples to help with continued research. And subsequently a book and TV movie were made about her life.
And still, we have short memories as people. In a way, we want to forget these contradictions, because they are painful. The story of Fannie Lou Hamer amid the realities of the present can help us, but can also cause us to give up…we also may be sick and tired of being sick and tired. But this is no cause for inaction. On the contrary, it is further inspiration and a reminder that we have had preparation for this time. Howard Thurman wrote of this moment of realization in his prayer for Our Time…
Our Father, fresh from the world, with the smell of life upon us, we make an act of prayer in the silence of this place. Our minds are troubled because the anxieties of our hearts are deep and searching. We are stifled by the odor of death which envelopes our earth…The panic of fear, the torture of insecurity, the ache of hunger, all have fed and rekindled ancient hatreds and long-forgotten memories of old struggles...
In this prayer, Thurman asks the Great Spirit of Life…Our father…for forgiveness…forgiveness that we have not done everything we could to keep our lamps trimmed and burning. We are, as Thurman and his contemporaries were, troubled…because the anxieties of our hearts are deep and searching. Thurman is saying that though we may be tortured by thoughts of old struggles, we can also find strength in these struggles…we can again realize that the contradictions of life are neither final nor ultimate and as Josiah Royce wrote that we can carry on, even after serious defeat and loss. We can even, Royce says, believe that our experience of finitude will not be the last word. This was clearly the lesson of Fannie Lou Hamer, as well as Henrietta Lacks. All of life is a contradiction. Yet, this does not have the final word. Thurman made this clear in his meditation, A Good Death where he writes that Life and death are felt as a single respiration-the ebb and flow of a single tide. He says that a Good Death is based on a Good Life…which he describes as what a person does with the details of living…seeing their life as a deliberate instrument in the hands of Life.
The injustice of Henrietta Lack’s cells being used without knowledge or permissions joins a long history of dehumanization and oppression, including the Tuskegee experiments and the sterilization of women of color (including Fannie Lou Hamer). Yet, this does not have the final word. Instead, there continues to be present, the hope of a seed…of a cell that lives on providing healing to so many people.
One more contradiction that came to my attention yesterday. There was an execution scheduled in Tennessee that was what they termed botched. The prisoner was still alive after two attempts at killing her. The commentator went on to say that the woman was robbed of basic human dignity in execution. This comment caught me off-guard. I repeated it in my head and realized that there could be no dignity in execution…capital punishment is wrong and has nothing to do with human dignity. Yet, often we accept statements like this.
Well, there is really no way to wrap this up, since we are talking about contradictions, but the message continues to be that in the face of defeat and loss…in the maelstrom of deep and searching anxieties of our hearts, there is a spirit…a spirit so sweet that it defies the imagination…a spirit so impactful that we pay attention…we seek the companionship of this spirit…the cosmic companionship as we prepare for the struggle…as we remain ready to be a deliberate instrument in the hands of Life…and ride the train bound for glory…
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