Gratitude is a Liberation Song

I just had the most surreal experience.

I was in South Carolina for latest episode of Undivided. I spent the week visiting plantations and old praises houses and churches. I talked to descendants of slaves about how their ancestors endured daily brutalities and hardship. The elders told me that faith had a lot to do with it, that faith was all they had, that after the most difficult days, the enslaved would gather in these tiny churches, and they would pray and sing.

If I’m being honest, when I hear these reflections, they feel like descriptions and theories that help make us feel better about the horrors of slavery.

But then, as I talked to them, the elders would start singing. They stomped and clapped as they sang. Some pulled out instruments. The songs transformed the room, and they transported me back in time. I could feel my spirit rising, my hope renewed. The experience was unreal.

Before, I had heard how faith carried a persecuted people through incredible adversity. Now, I could feel it. As one of the elders told me, they might not have had much, but they had song and faith and community, and that was enough. This was a source of strength, resilience, and survival. (I can’t wait to share more about this experience when our Undivided episode on the Black Church comes out.)

The day that I returned from South Carolina, I sat with my older daughter in our babaji room to practice kirtan. She played vaja, I played tabla, and she sang the shabad she’s currently learning. I’d heard it many times before, including the last several weeks she’s been learning it, but this time, given my recent experience, I heard it a bit differently.

ਠਾਕੁਰ ਹੋਏ ਆਪਿ ਦਇਆਲ ॥
ਭਈ ਕਲਿਆਣ ਆਨੰਦ ਰੂਪ ਹੁਈ ਹੈ ਉਬਰੇ ਬਾਲ ਗੁਪਾਲ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
The Divine Master has been compassionate.
I’ve been liberated and become the embodiment of bliss. Vahiguru has carried their children across.

It’s a powerful shabad that touches on so many themes I’ve been thinking about this week. Liberation, compassion, kinship, joy. It also made me feel gratitude, putting my own experience in perspective. I have so much freedom and so much joy, most of which I take for granted. And once again, the music transformed the room and transformed me. There was something indescribable about how it felt to sing it. My spirit rising, my hope renewed.

When she finished singing, I asked my daughter to switch spots. She sat at the tabla, and I sat at the vaja. I sang a shabad I used to sing a lot in my childhood but haven’t for years, a passage from Guru Arjan Sahib’s Sukhmani Sahib.

ਸੋ ਕਿਉ ਬਿਸਰੈ ਜਿ ਘਾਲ ਨ ਭਾਨੈ ॥
ਸੋ ਕਿਉ ਬਿਸਰੈ ਜਿ ਕੀਆ ਜਾਨੈ ॥
ਸੋ ਕਿਉ ਬਿਸਰੈ ਜਿਨਿ ਸਭੁ ਕਿਛੁ ਦੀਆ ॥
ਸੋ ਕਿਉ ਬਿਸਰੈ ਜਿ ਜੀਵਨ ਜੀਆ ॥
ਸੋ ਕਿਉ ਬਿਸਰੈ ਜਿ ਅਗਨਿ ਮਹਿ ਰਾਖੈ ॥
ਗੁਰ ਪ੍ਰਸਾਦਿ ਕੋ ਬਿਰਲਾ ਲਾਖੈ ॥
ਸੋ ਕਿਉ ਬਿਸਰੈ ਜਿ ਬਿਖੁ ਤੇ ਕਾਢੈ ॥
ਜਨਮ ਜਨਮ ਕਾ ਟੂਟਾ ਗਾਢੈ ॥
ਗੁਰਿ ਪੂਰੈ ਤਤੁ ਇਹੈ ਬੁਝਾਇਆ ॥
ਪ੍ਰਭੁ ਅਪਨਾ ਨਾਨਕ ਜਨ ਧਿਆਇਆ ॥੪॥

Why do we forget the One who doesn’t overlook us?
Why do we forget the One who is aware of what we do?
Why do we forget the One who has given us everything?
Why do we forget the One who is the source of life?
Why do we forget the One who cares for us in the midst of fire?
Only a rare few—with the Guru’s wisdom—realize this.
Why do we forget the One who lifts us out from poison?
Those repeatedly separated are reunited again.
Through the guru’s wisdom, this essential truth is understood.
O Nanak, divine people dwell on the divine.

We repeated the third and fourth lines as the asthaaee, and the more we sang them, the more I felt them. What’s wrong with us, that we forget the one who has given us everything, the one who has given us our lives and everything we enjoy?

Maybe this is the challenge of being human, that we forget, that we take for granted, that we overlook. I’ve felt this in so many moments of my life, being reminded to be grateful for what I have.

But today, I’m in a different state of mind, likely because of my recent visit to plantations in South Carolina. It’s given me a different perspective, not just on enslavement and injustice and suffering, but also on faith and song and hope. We can make our own hope—even in the harshest of conditions. It all starts with a touch of gratitude and a touch of faith.