Your Conscience Will Not Sleep | October 5, 2025 | Rev. Dr. Kathryn Benton

The opening music comes from the African American experience…

Well mother don't you stop prayin'

Father keep right on prayin'

Don't you stop prayin' for this old world is almost done

Keep your lamps trimmed and burning

Keep your lamps trimmed and burning

Keep your lamps trimmed and burning

For this old world is almost done

Brother don't you stop prayin'

Sister keep right on prayin'

Don't you stop prayin' for this old world is almost done

Keep our lamps trimmed and burning

Keep our lamps trimmed and burning

Keep our lamps trimmed and burning

For our race is almost run

Keep our lamps trimmed and burning…stay ready for what is to come…

It seems recently that this old world is almost done. I hear it from my friends, my family, the people I meet with every day. Yet, there is also an undercurrent of hope…for if we are keeping our lamps trimmed and burning, we have not yet given up. There is still, in the words of Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson, A Shining Thread of Hope…the hope left us by our ancestors…in this case by Black Women in this country. The authors characterize this work as describing the extraordinary achievements of black women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They state that these achievements did not grow out of degradation but out of a legacy of courage, resourcefulness, initiative, and dignity. What their stories show is that this hope does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability…it is hard won…it takes effort.

I am thinking of women associated with Fellowship Church today, especially as we honor the life of Belva Davis. Belva was such a woman as Hine and Thompson wrote about. She joins the ranks of our other ancestors, some known and many unknown that have, in the words of Olive Schreiner, made a track to the water’s edge…they have kept the lamps trimmed and burning so that change could come. At times there is a sense that change may be impossible…that this old world is almost done. Civil rights activist, school teacher and civic leader Clara Luper explained her situation like this:

As I see it, Blacks must become the active conscience of America, but conscience is a drowsy thing. It stirs, it turns over, takes another nap and falls into a deep, deep sleep. ‘Leave me alone,’ conscience cries. ‘Let me sleep, let me sleep,’ conscience cries. ‘Let time take care of it – time is the answer. Maybe ten years or maybe a hundred years.’ Oh no, America, your conscience, like old Pharoah’s of old, will not rest or sleep until we can eat at this [lunch counter].

Are we being called to be this conscience? Are we a drowsy thing, turning over taking another nap? This past Thursday, October 2, was the commemoration of the birth of Mohandas Gandhi in 1869. It was also Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement in Judaism. It is a day of fasting, repentance, reflection, confession and seeking forgiveness from God and from others. What if this were a call for all to repent…to change their hearts, confess the error of their ways and seek forgiveness? How would that look?

This news report about the Yom Kippur protest highlights what this response to the Day of Atonement could be. It could be a highlighting of what is going on…a message stating that we are there…we see what is going on. And this may also highlight Gandhi’s fascination with the experience of African Americans. During the visit with Gandhi, Sue Bailey Thurman was asked to sing several spirituals, including Were You There When They Crucified my Lord? It is said that Gandhi stated that it was this song that provided the root experience of the entire human race under the spread of the healing wings of suffering.

 

1 Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

2 Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Under the spread of the healing wings of suffering…this is where we indeed tremble. I feel it is an appropriate song, not only for the celebration of Gandhi’s birthday but also of the Jewish Holy Day of Yom Kippur that coincided with the birthday. It reminds us of our responsibility to reflect…to reflect on our own part in this mess. Can we reflect on the lives of those upon whose shoulders we stand? Can we engage in seeking atonement…at-one-ment…realizing that we are all part of one another? Do we have the ability to stay awake, instead of taking a nap?

This is an auspicious time…a time of turning as Joanna Macy proclaimed. But what are we turning toward? We have a choice, though at times it feels like we do not…at times it feels like our race is almost run.

I was speaking with my brother the other day. He is a life-long career diplomat who works currently as a contracted employee at the State Department. He was discussing the changes in the government, including the dissolution of the USAID program, a program dedicated to international development around the world. He remarked that the entire USAID program cost about the same as two B52 bombers…we have, in effect, traded military action for diplomacy. It is a depressing thought and might well cause us some drowsiness…not knowing what we can do about it. But I think we need to ask ourselves what Mohandas Gandhi would have done? Dedicated to non-violent action, Gandhi would have felt much like my brother. What would Clara Luper have done? How would she have reacted to such an injustice? Would she have taken a nap? What is Greta Thunberg doing right now? Landing on Israel’s shore in protest of the slaughter of Palestinian people. We have experienced the recent loss of people who have guided us in some way…guided us to follow our conscience…such as Dorsey Blake, J. Alfred Smith, Belva Davis, and so many others. We have their legacies and the legacy of the writers of the spirituals, like Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning. We also have the legacy of all the Black Women written about in Hine and Thompson’s book, such as Lucy Prince, Katy Ferguson, Phillis Wheatley, Jerena Lee, Marie Laveau, Susie Baker King Taylor, Harriet Jacobs, Maria W. Stewart, Sojourner Truth, and so many others, named and unnamed.

We are not standing alone. We have the all-pervading spirit whispering in our ear…the voice of truth, of justice, of peace. We have the Great Spirit of life guiding our steps and keeping us awake…reminding us to keep the lamps of truth trimmed and burning, illuminating our way. May we see the light in this dark time…the light that guided our ancestors. May we sense it in the flower and the tree, in the stars and the moon, in the wind and the rain and may we feel its presence even when the light is not visible, for in the words of Mohandas Gandhi…

I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing,

ever dying there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless,

that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates.

That informing power of spirit is God, and since nothing else that I see merely

through the senses can or will persist, God alone is…

for I can see that in the midst of death life persists,

in the midst of untruth truth persists,

in the midst of darkness light persists.