Good morning…
“Tarrying, in the African American Church, is a big deal,” she emailed me after yesterday’s post, Come Rest, which unpacked the meaning of the word tarry. “This word just happens to be in my reading for today. Very interesting description of what tarrying means within this group.” She emailed me a snapshot of a single page from her book.
“God’s timing is amazing,” I replied. “I have not thought about the word tarry for years and years and never for longer than a nanosecond. But for God to build upon our blog post from today with this expanded version of the word multiplies its power for me. What is the title of the book and who is the author and her history?”
“I know, isn’t God’s timing interesting?” she responded. “I know the word but really hadn’t ever thought about it before. The book is called Joy Unspeakable by Barbara A Holmes. She is African American and on the Faculty at the Living School. It’s part of my required reading. I just happened to get to this part of the book this morning. ?. It looks as if she is quoting an essay by David D. Daniels III entitled Until the Power Of the Lord Comes Down: African American Pentecostal Spirituality and Tarrying, written in 2001.”
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Excerpt from Barbara A. Holmes’ Joy Unspeakable
Years earlier…my father died. I lived a hundred miles away from home and had not seen him for a year, yet just before his death he kept telling me that I had come to visit him many times during the preceding weeks and that everything was going to be alright. This experience points to the permeable boundary between life and death. The abiding time that precedes death can be deeply contemplative moments in which space-time has no meaning. Boundaries can be crossed at will, granting the ability to abide with one another in the spiritual landscape that grace allows. If this is true, then perhaps no one really ever dies alone.
On one level, shut-ins allow ordinary people to approximate the experience of “cloistering”… But on another level, shut-ins focus the attention of the community on tarrying. Although prayers can be as diverse as those who utter them, tarrying implies a waiting expectantly. David Daniels describes the practice as a contemplative.
Tarrying parallels contemplative prayer forms that seek communion with God… While most contemplative prayer forms limit bodily involvement or movement, tarrying incorporates active, bodily participation. Finally, tarrying is not a private experience of an individual direction his or herself; it is a communal event…”
According to Daniels, tarrying is prayer that is internalized but communal, fervent, repetitious, and liberating.
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Tarrying is waiting expectantly. Tarrying seeks communion with God, incorporating active, bodily participation. Tarrying is prayer that is internalized but communal, fervent, repetitious, and liberating. I love learning new facets of tarrying together, abiding with one another in the spiritual landscape that grace allows.
My mind now wanders to the fascinating title of David Daniel’s essay. Until the Power Of the Lord Comes Down: African American Pentecostal Spirituality and Tarrying. When my husband and I ran a church youth group throughout the late 1980’s and the early 1990’s, the kids loved singing a spirited song with a similar name, Sing Till the Power of the Lord Comes Down.
I google the song title and discover the music video below, a worship service recorded live in Kingston, Jamaica in October 2019, before social distancing became a thing. Enjoy this vibrant depiction of tarrying together with our powerful Lord.
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come down to you, and God’s power will come over you” (Luke 1:35a, CEV).
…Sue…
