Let the Circle Be Unbroken* | March 1, 2026 | Rev. Dr. Kathryn Benton
- The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
*Title of book by Marimba Ani, published in 1969
I was standing by my window
On a cold and cloudy day
When I saw the hearse come rolling
For to carry my mother away
Will the circle be unbroken?
By and by, Lord, by and by
There's a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky
These words, written by Ada R. Habershon in 1907, highlight for me today the profound loss of Dr. Dorsey Blake who died a year ago tomorrow. The words seem to pick up on the grief that we still experience, as well as, the more cosmological feeling of loss and of devastation evident in our world today. The question is asked, Will the circle be unbroken? What is this referring to? Which circle? Is it the circle of Life…of existence? The past, the present and the future as one?
Well, this song reminds me of a book I was very much influenced by, Let the Circle Be Unbroken by Marimba Ani. It is said that the title of her book refers to refers to…generational trauma, legacy, and methods of liberation. The “circle” can be thought of as the cycle that many people of African descent experience such as cycles of injustice, cycles of hardship, and the cycles of subsequent trauma derived from these elements. In this book, she compares the African worldview with the European worldview. She speaks of the Universal Life Force expressed in African Traditional Spirituality. She sees this as an energy that unites us all and gives meaning to everything. She describes this as a different concept of the universe, of time. Ani compares this to the European notion of God that is personified and imposes a separation that robs us of our strength. Eventually, she says, this mindset leads to White (European) Nationalism and power over instead of power with. Death is seen as an important stage in life in which we become closer to the Source and are not separate from the living or even those yet to come. Of course, this worldview points to a wholeness that is missing for us today…a wholeness in which there is reciprocity…in which the ancestors give us strength and we give them strength. A wholeness that might be seen as a circle.
Alice Walker also spoke to this wholeness in her book, The Color Purple. In a conversation between Celie and Shug, she reveals a possible re-interpretation of God. The conversation goes, in part, like this:
Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for.
Well, us talk and talk bout God, but I'm still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?) Not the little wildflowers. Nothing.
Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere.
Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind, water, a big rock.
This is what is meant, I think, by wholeness. God…or the Universal Life Force is everything…not a white man who tries to control you…who corrupts everything, but a wholeness that is, as Shug says, inside you and inside everybody else…flowers, the wind, the water and the rock…this spirit of wholeness is everywhere! There is more to this quote. Specifically, it addresses both racism and sexism and I would add anthropocentrism. Shug says that instead of believing in the power of the master…Mr., they should look to the flowers, wind, water and rocks. This is the wholeness that could be a way to turning our current situation around…maybe God…the all-pervading presence... the Universal Life Force is trying to tell us something right now…
Well, we need to stay awake…and alert…in order to hear the voice of this sacred spirit…this Universal Life Force speaking to us…making our situation clear and showing us a way forward. We know that it is this force that is present in all life…even in the experience of death and the honoring and communing with the ancestors…our ancestors like Dr. Dorsey Blake and so many others who have illuminated our path and who are capable of guiding us still…if we keep open communication that is mutually supportive.
Another such ancestor was Doris Akers, a gospel composer, arranger and singer who wrote in 1958, with another ancestor, Mahalia Jackson, Lord Don’t Move the Mountain. This song illustrates this synergy between an environmental, spiritual reality known especially to women…especially Black women…addressing all isms…racism, sexism, anthropocentrism, etc.
Lord don’t move the mountain but give me the strength to climb seems to be a profound recognition that God will not move the mountain…the mountain is a part of the natural world that we must learn to traverse. This is the profound message that seems to have been missing from the Women’s Movement of my time…the acknowledgement of the struggle…by White women, to be sure, but even more significantly by Black women and other women of color. It is the acknowledgement that there are mountains to climb, but that we are able…able to overcome…able to get over. And as we are getting over, we need to bring all of humanity with us…they are indeed connected to us as we get over that mountain…and this includes the ancestors.
This truth was not acknowledged in the fledgling suffrage movement that culminated in the 1848 Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention. There were no persons of color present, besides Frederick Douglass. No Black women were invited, despite the profound work of Harriet Tubman…despite the dedication and audacious presence of Sojourner Truth and so many others, working often behind the scenes, without the backing of the men…without the time and privilege to attend such a convention.
Let us remember that Sojourner Truth was born in 1797. She was able to articulate a feminist…or indeed womanist theology. As a sojourner, Truth was able to stand outside her own (often non-existent) community and depend on the good-will of others, but especially of God…the Universal Life Force…the wholeness…the unity that helps us get over that mountain and to continue our sojourn for justice and of truth.
And this brings us to another teacher of mine, who is indeed an ancestor, Audre Lorde. In an essay entitled "Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference" she wrote:
With honor and love
We have chosen each other
And the edge of each other’s battles
The war is the same
If we lose
Someday women’s blood will congeal
Upon a dead planet
If we win
There is no telling.
There is no telling…the possibility of this statement is powerful! Lorde spoke of the intersectionality of our identities… actually the necessity of wholeness…of forging new ways to survive with the strength of the All…the entire circle of life that provides ways of healing and love rather than the stagnation of former cycles of violence and oppression. May we join that circle, one that includes the wisdom of the elders and the ancestors, and dance.
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