Castalia 225
Midnight Special
Dear Friends,
Let that midnight special shine its light on me.
Yonder comes Roberta. Tell me how do you know?
By her umberella and the clothes she wo’.
Umberella on her shoulder, piece of paper in her hand,
She says to the gov’nor,“I want my man”.
Let that midnight special shine its light on me.
Oh, twenty long years in the penitentiary!
Midnight Special Traditional, arranged and performed by Ishmael Wallace
In the darkest hour of the night, that hour when all support seems absent, when we are brought face to face with our incapacity, comes that train which can bear us to freedom.
Though we are locked in a narrow cell, someone loves us. She is a capable person, as we know from the umbrella on her shoulder, and in her hand, she holds the piece of paper which can get us out of jail.
What is this jail in which we languish, and what does it mean to be free?
We always have a ruler. To be free is to be ruled by one’s rightful king; to be in jail is to be ruled by a usurper.
As Kruptos writes in a searching essay,
“There is the kingship of the living God. And there is the pretender kingdom of Satan who would try to usurp God’s place.”
And what of the Midnight Special?
The Midnight Special arrives in every moment, but we often miss it, because we want our experience to be a certain way. The Midnight Special is both pleasure and pain, both peace and war. When we welcome all that comes as a messenger from God, we live in the light of the Midnight Special.
Thank you so much.
With every good wish,
Ishmael
