For Good Friday Meditation: Odetta Singing "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child"

This old African-American spiritual has always seemed to me a quintessential Good Friday song. The unfathomable pain of mothers kept in bondage, whose children were taken from them and sold as chattel to places far away, never to be seen again . . . . And the unfathomable pain of those motherless children longing for a glimpse of their mothers once again . . . .

As I've said before, I find Odetta Holmes soul-stirring to listen to, and so I've turned to her rendition of "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" this Good Friday afternoon. And I wanted to share the video with you, too.