The Choir(s) Kept Singing for Freedom

Freedom.

This is a word we hear quite often on a variety of landscapes, holding a variety of meanings to various ones of our fellow journeymen.

I almost – until a later point in my reflective experience of something today – wanted to call this post Navigating Landscapes With Meta Data.

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Conceptually, it is my belief that meta data is a thing in itself, pre-dating the advent of computers.

Our reservoir of personal meta data is what allows us to either navigate new experiences with flexibility, adaptability and open-mindedness or to respond with rigidity, maladaption and close-mindedness.

Our earliest formation of meta data, of course, goes back to our childhoods. Immediately coming to mind is the well-known writing Children Learn What They Live.

But continued life experiences also allow us to file away all types of meta data, enabling us to build upon and adapt to a variety of ever-changing-even-so-slightly landscapes – both external and internal – as life marches us forward.

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I should probably define meta data at this point:

met·a·da·ta/ˈmedəˌdādə,ˈmedəˌdadə/a set of data that describes and gives information about other data.

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Translations and more definitions

People also ask

What is an example of metadata? Metadata is data about data. … A simple example of metadata for a document might include a collection of information like the author, file size, the date the document was created, and keywords to describe the document. Metadata for a music file might include the artist’s name, the album, and the year it was released.Jan 4, 2020
What Is Metadata? (Definition and Uses) – ThoughtCo

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This morning I drove 46 minutes (GPS time, not my driving time!) to visit a small church north of me that a friend recommended, for the second time in a month. I enjoyed the drive to and from – weaving through rural roads and farmlands and also traveling on the Pennsylvania turnpike for parts.

While I’ve lived in Pennsylvania now for fourteen months, having relocated (after 49 years of life in Delaware) in 2012 to Alabama and then relocating back north, via 6 months in Delaware, to my new home in Pennsylvania last August…I must say there are times when I’m still navigating this new landscape through a lifetime pool of personal and learned meta data.

Those who are somewhat familiar with website and other computer codings know that meta data is often hidden data. Data that is intrinsically linked to the viewable file, and in some cases a significant driving force of how this file/website, etc performs in a variety of ways.

On my way home, I was wondering if I might set my GPS to a “grocery store near me” and somehow avoid traveling all the way home and then another 20 minutes to the grocery store to buy some cilantro – an ingredient I wanted for something I plan to cook up this afternoon.

I was having trouble with my signal and my phone was not responding to set to the Giant (a large grocery chain in this area) so I started to drive and when I again got signal, my search showed a Karn’s Grocery Market about 5 miles away. I have seen these markets here and there in my travels through some Pennsylvania towns, so I figured they would have cilantro.

It is a Sunday afternoon and the personal meta data in me is wired for a bit of leisurely adventure. I also felt like finding a Rutter’s and getting a turkey sub for lunch- my favorite there – but this was not found along my way to Karn’s.

My thoughts also reminded me of some meta data from my time in Alabama, when my former husband and I would sometimes visit the Waffle House in Decatur after a Sunday service.

For a brief moment, I wondered if there could be a Waffle House around, but I knew the nearest one I’ve seen was in York/Lancaster area.

As I wound myself through small Pennsylvania towns that seem to have a specific look and style to them, my visual and emotional meta data was being pulled from some of my favorite films and movies with similar geographic settings and features of generalized areas of this large state.

The Deer Hunter is one of my favorite films and there are pieces of the landscapes of small towns here and remnants of factories that easily conger images from that old film. While I’ve only been to Pittsburgh once as a teenager, having watched and re-watched that film countless times, I have incorporated meta data about this landscape, its people and its general culture.

And of course, there’s Groundhog Day and Punxsutawney PA….or Witness set in rural Amish geography.

As I pulled into the parking lot of Karn’s I paused, looking at the sign. This Karn’s was different from other ones I’ve seen and definitely gave off the smalltown market vibe.

As I walked in, I found myself observing so many things about my envioronment – still somewhat new since in the general region yet not exactly as where I live per se.

When I walked in with my cart my immediate meta data pulled was the grocery market on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, where during my 20-year first marriage my family frequented on many a summer’s day, as my children’s grandmother had a beach house there. It was the lighting, the smell, the layout somewhat…the smallness of it compared to the brightly lit, gigantic food chains most of us are now accustomed to.

The produce section was immediate and I began to look for cilantro. Among their modest selections, there was no large, banded cilantro clumps like I was used to purchasing but eventually I found a section of numerous plastic packaged small quantities of cilantro and other fresh herbs.

Not being able to find many clumps of fresh, banded-and-misted cilantro, parsley and such is meta data concerning this area, to a degree. I’m not saying one can’t drive close by and find those things elsewhere, but I’m saying that there are other places in this country where one would not easily step into this type of market.

And this meta data generates information in my mind that helps me navigate the immediacies of my new home state on a variety of levels.

I made my way back to the deli to see what fresh sandwiches I might purchase for my drive home. I noticed a display with a one-offering fresh hot soup – lobster bisque. Into my mind popped more meta data embedded during my second marriage that took me in my memories to the high-end Stew Leonard’s grocery store that my second husband and I would stop at on the drive from Delaware to New Hampshire to visit his kids and indulge in all sorts of premium food novelties.

Lobster bisque soup. I feel like I could go for some of that on this Sunday here in central Pennsylvania. So I dipped some into a container.

In the deli, I notice little hamburger bun sandwiches with “Sweet Bologna.” As a child, this was a common lunchmeat I was familiar with, but we called it “Lebanon Bologna.” Not something I buy as an adult, but yes…I think I could go for one of those right now! Meta data.

Winding my way through this market about the size – as I recall – of the old Acme or Hearne’s markets in the Newark, Delaware area, part of me felt 60’s and 70’s meta data coming into my mind. I noticed small freezers where one could pick out an ice cream – like the old Nelson’s deli I visited often as a child for milk, lunchmeat and…ice cream…on Kirkwood Highway; and a cigarette case that was set off on a wall and didn’t look particularly from this millenniuum.

The lines and cashiers felt more personal, yet of course had the same card readers and computerized systems of sorts one likely finds anywhere now.

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When I got into my vehicle and sat eating the lobster bisque soup (there is a limit to the things I will do while driving!) I was looking around and thinking on a variety of things and at this point, my reflections were simply as I just shared.

But these personal pathways of meta data took yet another turn when I set my GPS for home (still, ironically, exactly 46 minutes away just as I’d been from home to the church so I did detour…but it was worth it) and turned on Spotify to a new musical artist I’ve been enjoying.

As I started up my engine and pulled away, the voice of Rhiannon Giddens began to sing the old, beautiful ballad Birmingham Sunday.

And there I was.

Moving slowly on a sunny day through this small, Pennsylvania town toward my new home in the north…and the meta data from having lived in the deep south was moving through my being in a profound way.

I am grateful that I got to live in Alabama for almost eight years and that apparently, my accumulated meta data to that point in 2012 allowed me to embrace that new experience. It was a culture shock of sorts at first, but when I left I came back north saying “ya’ll” to people…and I still find myself doing that.

It took some time before I’d let that phrase roll from my tongue rather than “you guys” but it did happen. Like any change – even some small one – that first time can be awkward. I actually remember the first time I let myself say “y’all” – it was in 2018 while working on my chicken coop with a young girl from our church. As we chatted, it just slipped out along with a few other grammatical colloquialisms such as, “can you hand me them nails!”

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And as I listened to this powerful musical piece on my drive home, I recalled being in Birmingham a number of times and visiting the 16th Street Baptist Church landmark and learning the history more deeply. I remember in particular one time when I picked up my stepson from the Birmingham airport and I also had my younger son with me. We three stopped off at some places after having lunch, and this church was one of them.

There was an older man in the park – possibly homeless but I don’t know for sure – who saw us reading the plaques and approached us to give us one of the best guided, impromtu history lessons we could have hoped for. The man knew the sequence and details of this event so well and references to so many local people, details and connections that surely, he rivaled any professional “tour guide.”

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I will end this where I started – mentioning the word freedom.

Since it is a Sunday, it seems appropriate to be reminded that the earliest public speaking of Jesus and announcement of His mission and intention was when he was twelve years old:

Luke 4: 16-21 (The Message)

He came to Nazareth where he had been raised. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written,

God’s Spirit is on me;
    he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor,
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and
    recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free,
    to announce, “This is God’s time to shine!”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.”

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Driving home today with this reflective song, Birmingham Sunday, on “loop” – a feature in Spotify which I sometimes utilize to fully and repeatedly take in a musical piece or its lyrics – I continued my reflections.

“And the choirs kept singing for freedom“ is the refrain.

Not a single choir…but the choirs.

This implication of the oneness in heart, mind and spirit that the Church is called to is striking.

When one suffers, we all suffer. When one rejoices, we all rejoice. We are one body and the eye cannot say to its hand, “I have no need of you.”

We all have places in us for which the needed meta data to navigate a situation does not yet – or fully – exist.

As I pull up the YouTube of this Rhiannon Giddens cover (and the lyrics) of Birmingham Sunday, originally made popular by Joan Baez, I realize that my title to this writing is both inaccurate and accurate.

The official lyrics are actually singular (“the choir kept singing for freedom”) but I’ve listened twice again, and this artist definitely sounds to be pluralizing the word to, choirs.

And I like that.

I like that, a lot.

And I think I will go with that.

Perhaps we all hear what we want to hear – and what I heard on my drive home was the corporate plurality of many voices, joined together, for freedom.

And in my thinking, this means all sorts of freedom(s).

Where it is needed, may we learn to hear the singing of many choirs and enter both into freedom and freedom-making. (I am noting also that this musical artist has also altered the last stanza of lyrics from ” sing it so softly” to “sing it so loudly” – an adaptation which seems appropriate some 55 years later…)

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