Sunday Morning Travel Tunes

I celebrated Father's Day this year by driving up to OKC to deliver my old bike to my little sister. Yeah, nothing like 12+ hours on the road to honor one's male chromosome donor. (To be fair, the boys are in New Mexico and my own dad was working, and I did spend some time thinking about them. What else is there to do when you're alone in your car for 12+ hours?)

As I am wont to do on Sunday mornings, I tuned in for the 6 a.m. broadcast of Speaking of Faith on my local public radio station. Unlike other Sunday mornings, I actually caught most of the show because I left so early, and that was a real treat because this week's episode was a rebroadcast of an interview with Joe Carter and a discussion about the history and significance of African-American spirituals.

This revelation may come as a surprise to you, Gentle Reader, given that I so rail against organized religion and dogma, but I'm a huge fan of African-American gospel music. Don't give me any of that contemporary Christian crap. It has no soul. The gospel music I'm talking about has soul. It's embued in every note and it doesn't matter, I think, what you believe or what you don't believe because so long as you're a human living and breathing, that soul is going to find a way to connect with you. You may not like that experience or it may confuse you, but really good gospel music embued with soul, I think, has the power to find the soul--or whatever you want to call that ineffable essence each of us has--in every listener, no matter how deeply it's hidden or tarnished or denied.

Of course, spirituals are, as I learned, not the same as gospels. You too, Gentle Reader, can learn that by listening to the podcast of the episode or by listening to the entire interview with Joe Carter, both of which are available on the site set up specifically for the episode. I also encourage you to listen to the playlist of spirituals, in their entirety, that Mr. Carter performed during the interview. That's some really amazing, powerful stuff--just what I needed to break the monotony of a long drive up I-35.