A Mother's Strugglin' on the Land

Two years ago while listening to stories of discrimination and land loss in interview after interview of farmers and families, lyrics came rushing out of me at 4:00 o'clock one morning. In those morning moments, these words came:

"There’s a storm cloud over Georgia,
There’s struggle on the land;
This lynchin’ and this stealin’,
It’s too hard to understand.

In the eyes of the Creator,
We are family, we are kin;
If love is still the answer,
Then where do we begin?"*

Back in those days of sitting around, singing, and jamming with students, I'd sing it and play it to the tune of John Denver's advocacy song, "It's About Time." You can also hear him sing that song at this link. It seemed to fit until the time came to work on a new arrangement.

After some serious and prayerful discussion, the young singer/songwriter said, "Dad, I can't sing those lines; they're not my story, but I can sing these." And he played his version of the song and his melody. Here are the first two stanzas.

"There's a storm cloud over Georgia,
A mother's strugglin' on the land.
Tales of tortured times,
All across this fabled land.

A sentence cast down from the Lord
Says we are brothers, 'n we are kin;
Someone says hope's the answer,
Knowing right where to begin."**

I'm especially struck by the line, "A mother's strugglin' on the land," because, indeed, that is what I was told. A man farms, a man who loves the land. A woman loves her husband, and she loves the land. She has sleepless night alongside his as they try to figure out how to keep what is their own. They both feel tortured. He works the land, and she also may work the land as well, and she's called upon to support her man in his uphill struggle for survival as a farmer.

So, my fine young son who is still learning of this righteous cause, you got it more right than you realized. And, on this mother's day in the year of our Lord 2008, my prayer is for relief for those mothers who are "strugglin' on the land," those mothers who have sons and daughters who are lost to farming because of what they saw their father and mother living through. And, my prayers are with the fathers who are likewise "strugglin' on the land." All are caught up in the struggle. Seldom are family members immune from the suffering that engulfs them all.

Someday soon, maybe we'll hear this song on iTunes.

*Words by Waymon Hinson
**Words by Waymon Hinson and Micah P. Hinson