Abstract
This article brings together fragments of a conceptual scheme and a number of big ideas: religious faith, contexts of African American spirituality, mental health and illness; and family therapy and the extended metaphor of sedimentary rock formation. Religion and spirituality are used somewhat interchangeably in this essay to signify embodied spirituality and sacred unity. The rock metaphor captures the idea of multiple entities that, like layers of sedimentary rock, make up families and communities and provide cohesion and a connection with the past. The rock metaphor captures the quality of hardness that may have either a positive of negative meaning and that allows for resilience in the face of adversity. Both qualities can be found in African American spirituality and Black churches. Both qualities have a relationship with the numinous. The qualities of the rock and their relationship with the numinous offer family therapists’ new insights and ways to think about how to approach a clinical presentation.
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Notes
“Extended metaphor” here refers to something (i.e., a rock or rocks) already introduced that is further developed in this essay. A rock is firm, has structural integrity, and is reliable. Early sedimentary rock layers are foundational for what comes next and represent something that undergoes change but also gathers and melds together scattered parts, holds, retains, resists or withstands, and endures. This idea of “rock” is crucial to what I have to say and offer here.
I have employed “river” as metaphor elsewhere. See Smith (1997).
For a definition of rock, see http://ourpastimes.com/difference-between-metamorphic-sedimentary-rock-8510584.html?=Track2&utm_source=IACB2C; Michasel Mason, “Difference Between Metamorphic and Sedimentary Rocks.
See “Stonehenge,” History.com, http://www.History.com/topics/british-history/stonehenge.
The idea of God as Creator and ultimate firm foundation finds expression in African American spirituals. Examples include Lead Me to the Rock, No Hiding Place, I Got a Home in That Rock, Rock of Ages, and The Rocks and the Mountains (Work 1940).
Church history is far greater, complex, multifaceted, and diverse phenomenon than is typically acknowledged.
According to W.E.B. DuBois, there was another side of this ethic. It brought out the worst characteristics in us. See Du Bois’s (1903) “Of the Faith of the Fathers” in The Souls of Black Folk, page 140.
Is this the tip of an iceberg? Lasting change is slow, if it comes at all. After President Barack Obama gave his stirring speech (on June 28, 2015) and sang Amazing Grace at the funeral in Charleston, South Carolina, an important editorial appeared in the August 10, 2015, edition of London’s The Guardian. Entitled “The Guardian views on Ferguson a year on: both moral vision and practical action are needed,” the editorial included the following: “Twelve months after the killing of Michael Brown the US must still confront the need for change in the way its police treat African American men.” It continues, “Since Ferguson, there have been other high-profile racially charged shootings in cities including New York, Baltimore and Cincinnati. Already this year, more than 700 Americans have been shot dead by police, with black men disproportionately victims. A recent AP poll found 65% of African Americans say they or somebody in their family have been treated unfairly by police, as opposed to 8% of whites.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/10/guardian-view-on-ferguson-a-year-on-both-moral-vision-and-practical-action-are-needed.
Reviewing the year since the Ferguson riots, the local St. Louis Post-Dispatch observed that since Michael Brown’s killing, Americans have often seen undeniable police brutality up close. Tragically, it was there in Ferguson again on Sunday when a day of anniversary events, which had in many ways been judged a success, ended, a black man shot at a plainclothes St Louis officers in an unmarked car, who returned fire and wounded him.” This is just another tip of the iceberg. Also, see Adelle M. Banks, “Why Do Black Churches Have Steady Membership While Other Christian Denominations Decline?,” Huffington Post, August 15, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-do-black-churches-have-steady-membership-while-other-christian-denominations-decline_us_55cd197de4b0ab468d9cde6d.
See Smith and Riedel-Pfaefflin (2002). In this essay, pseudo-forgiveness, pre-mature forgiveness and mature forgiveness are distinguished. Mature forgiveness may be a hall-mark of mental health. But how do we discern when mature forgiveness is desirable, possible or not possible? What is mature forgiveness’s relationship to love, Justice and power? See Smith and Riedel-Pfaefflin (2004). Also see Pfaefflin and Smith (2015).
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Smith, A. Rock: An Unlikely Metaphor for Spirituality, Family Therapy, Mental Health and Illness. Pastoral Psychol 66, 743–756 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-017-0783-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-017-0783-z