Containing African American History: Coil Baskets, Face Jugs, and Dave the Potter – Part Two

Part one of this Black History Month blog focused on sweetgrass baskets, an African-based art form still practiced by people in the South Carolina (and northern Georgia) low country.  This installment concerns earthenware containers of history:  specifically, the distinctive pottery tradition of face jugs and the remarkable productions of one of the few slave artists/craftspeople–Dave Drake—whose name, works, and life experience have survived to claim their rightful place in United States history.

Face Jugs

Baskets are fine containers for dry, perishable ingredients; in the pre-Civil-War American South, pottery was the most common material from which to make containers for liquids and long-term storage.  The Edgefield area south of Charleston, near the Savannah River, had ample supplies of clay suitable for stoneware; it also had a large supply of second- or third-generation ‘in-country’ slave craftsmen.  In the early 19^th century, white entrepreneurs founded commercial potteries in the area, ‘employing’ skilled slaves and developing craft techniques, like attractive glazes and slip decorations, that enhanced product appeal to customers who, earlier, had relied on more ad hoc plantation-made pottery. 

Just about all African cultures have made and still make pottery.  Most is crafted by women, with the exception of ritual or sacred vessels that must be fashioned by men.  Antebellum South Carolina potteries used male slaves as workers: is there any trace of African male-crafted pottery traditions in pre-civil-war Edgefield pottery?

 A Civil-War-era face jug from the Edgefield region; the banner heading this section shows an array of African American-made face jugs produced in the late 1850s.

I think so, at least obliquely.  Face jugs began to be produced in the decades before the Civil War, and their iconographical import and possible religious use remain mysterious, although some have been found at gravesites.  Basically, face jugs are smallish containers that feature rather grotesque faces; the main color is usually dark, the mouth and teeth are highlighted, and the eyes are emphasized with kaolin (white clay) and, sometimes, white shell, glass, or porcelain inlay.  Their small size suggests that they were not utilitarian containers; their visually prominent mouths and, particularly, eyes suggest that they have ties to Kongo minkisi  (singular, nkisi) figures, sacra made by male sculptors and male traditional healers.

In general, minkisi are sculptural repositories for medicinal or retributive forces.  The best-known type today is the ‘nail fetish,’ a standing warlike figure into which sharp metal objects are driven to activate the forces contained in the object.  Throughout the greater Kongo cultural realm, however, most minkisi are not metal-studded; they have medicinal/spiritual substances attached to or contained within them, and they can be quite small.  What they do have in common with their nail-fetish brethren is white eyes—kaolin or shells or mirrored glass signifying after-death spiritual power—and at least partially opened mouths signifying forceful truth-telling and, at times, a justice that can devour evil.

A Kongo nkisi nkondi (often referred to as a nail fetish) -- its function was to pursue and/or punish evildoers; an older nkisi nkondi, denuded of its additive materials.

A Kongo nkisi with healing/protective materials added to or inserted in the head, stomach, and back.

It makes sense to me, therefore, that the original impetus for South Carolina face jugs is the Kongo nkisi tradition.  A jug can be a repository for ‘magic’ substances as easily as a back cavity, an inserted horn or feathers, and additive surface materials.  The increasingly whimsical appearance of South Carolina face jugs may be attributable to the simple fact that they became  popular, money-making commodities and that white potters began to produce them.  

A Fon (‘Slave Coast,’ present-day Benin) bocio figure; note the chains signifying the enslavement these deliberately ‘rough’ sculptures tried to prevent.

Another historical message ante-bellum face jugs may send is the change in South Carolina slave-importation patterns. 1807 marked a semi-halt to the slave trade proper; slave ships still plied the waves, of course, but their embarkation points, routes, and trans-shipment hubs became more complicated.  As opposed to earlier patterns, late 18^th-century and early 19^th-century slave importation to South Carolina included many more shipments from the Slave Coast, the Gold Coast, and the Bight of Biafra.  

An Akan/Ashanti memorial head, used in funerary rituals and placed on gravesites.

These diverse populations could have contributed to the face jug tradition as well.  Fon people (Slave Coast) were known for bocio, often frightening anthropomorphic figures that warded off evil (including being enslaved).  Akan (Gold Coast) people made terracotta heads to put on graves.  Eastern Nigerian peoples had masking and sacred sculptural traditions that featured fearsome faces; Northern Nigerian peoples produced anthropomorphic clay vessels.

An Ekoi/Ejagham head crest from the Cross River area of Southeastern Nigeria (Bight of Benin); older exemplars are covered with (animal?) skin and perhaps substituted for actual enemy heads.

A Chamba figurative vessel from Northeast Nigeria (captured peoples from this area were transported to the Bight of Benin, then sold).

Given the many origins of South Carolina slaves by the mid-nineteenth century, it’s probable that face jugs were a hybrid pottery form with initially a vaguely apotropaic function.  As their popularity grew, a clever potter could ward off evil in a distinctly New World way – by producing containers that sold well and thus prevented the potter himself from being sold away from his community.

Dave the Potter

The slave craftspeople who made sweetgrass and pottery containers were almost always anonymous.  A notable exception is Dave Drake, known as ‘Dave the Potter,’ an Edgefield slave craftsman who not only signed and dated most of his works but also incised short poems into his pots.  The large jar pictured in part above includes this couplet:  "I made this jar, all of cross, if you don't repent, you will be lost." 

Although some other Edgefield area slave potters signed their works with distinctive marks, even initials, on the bottom of the pot, Dave wrote his name and the fabrication date in large, bold letters on the shoulder of the container.  When he added a verse, it appeared underneath the signature or elsewhere under the vessel's top lip.  Thus Dave claimed double authorship as potter and as poet.

A diorama of  ‘Pottersville,’ where Dave worked for decades.

As a potter, Dave was remarkable: he produced some of the largest stoneware vessels ever made in the United States.  They are notable for their symmetrical elegance, for the subtle variations of glazes, and for their durability—over 100 signed containers remain in collections throughout the south and elsewhere, including the Smithsonian.  Further, Dave had only one leg, making it difficult to turn the potters wheel while throwing the pot.  One legend has it that Dave threw himself across railroad tracks in order to lose a limb, thereby reducing his value as a slave when his master threatened to sell him.  Another oral tradition states that Dave was paired with a slave who had lost both arms and who worked the wheel with his strong legs while Dave created the vessel with his strong arms.

The best historical information about Dave the Potter is embodied in his artworks themselves.  They testify to his strength – many are so large that they required four handles to carry them when they were filled.  They testify to his aesthetic sensibility and his technical prowess.  And through his poetic inscriptions, they also testify to his emotional and intellectual life, plus providing a partial record of life events. 

A pot inscribed “Lm may 3^rd 1862/Dave”; ‘Lm’ refers to Lewis Miles, who owned the potteryworks and may have owned Dave for a time.

The inscriptions tell us that Dave was literate and was instructed in Christianity.  As they often refer to his owners, and are dated, they provide a rough timeline of his life in South Carolina (he stayed in the Edgefield area until his death, in the 1870s).  They suggest pride in his craft and knowledge of how his wares were to be used:  “A very large Jar = which has 4 handles =pack it full of fresh meats — then light = candles,” the candles referring to the melted wax that would seal the vessels. They indicate that he had a love life and that family and friends had been sold away from the community:  "I wonder where is all my relations / Friendship to all—and every nation."

The “sun, moon, and, and stars” vessel that Dave made during the Civil War.

Evidently, Dave was not content to wonder about the itineraries of fellow slaves.  At least one inscription appears to give directions to freedom, using the constellation Ursa Major (‘the Big Bear,’  ‘the Big Dipper,’ ‘the Drinking Gourd’) as a guide to the way North:  "The sun, moon and stars / in the west are plenty of bear.”  Another makes a perhaps ironic reference to Independence Day:  “the fourth of July – is Surely come – / to blow the fife = and beat the drum.”  Since the 30-gallon jar featuring this poem is dated July 4, 1859, Dave obviously was working rather than enjoying the holiday. 

Because he inscribed himself proudly in his own craft, Dave Drake produced objects that contained and exhibited his own history, and via synecdoche, the history of talented slaves who remain anonymous. Dave speaks for himself and his compatriots.  But it does not diminish his self-made legacy, I think, by suggesting as a parallel commemoration the words of Walt Whitman, a near-contemporary American poet:  “I am large.  I contain multitudes.”

References

[Note: In 2010, Laban Carrick Hill published a Caldecott-Medal-winning children’s book about Dave the Potter, with lovely illustrations by Bryan Collier.  Dave’s story, although especially inspiring to African American children, fascinates children of all backgrounds.]

Baldwin, Cinda K. "Edgefield Face Vessels: African-American Contributions to American Folk Art." American Visions: The Magazine of Afro-American Culture 5:4 (1990), pp.16-20.

Burrison, John A.  “South Carolina’s Edgefield District: An Early International Crossroads of Clay.”  American Studies Journal 56 (2012). http://www.asjournal.org/56-2012/south-carolinas-edgefield-district-an-early-international-crossroads-of-clay/

Carney, Judith A.  Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas.  Cambridge MA:  Harvard UP, 2002.

Cooksey, Susan et al., editors.  Kongo across the Waters.  Gainesville FL:  U of Florida P, 2013.

“Dave the Potter—Pottersville, Edgefield County, South Carolina.”  SCIWAY (South Carolina’s Information Highway) 2016. http://www.sciway.net/afam/dave-slave-potter.html

Fields-Black, Edda L.  Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. Bloomington IN: Indiana UP, 2008.

“Grass Roots:  African Origins of an American Art.”  National Museum of African Art.  Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2010.  http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/grassroots/index.html

Hall, Michael D. "Brother’s Keeper: Some Research on American Face Vessels and Some Conjecture on the Cultural Witness of Folk Potters in the New World."  In Stereoscopic Perspective: Reflections on American Fine Art and Folk Art.  Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1988.

Hill, Laban Carrick.  Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave.  New York: Little, Brown, 2010.

“A History of African American Face Jugs.” Chattanooga State, n.d.

http://river.chattanoogastate.edu/orientations/ex-learn-obj/Face_Jugs/Face_Jugs_print.html

Isensee, Laura.  “Calling Slaves ‘Workers’ is More Than an Editing Error.”  nprEd.  23 October  2015.  http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/23/450826208/why-calling-slaves-workers-is-more-than-an-editing-error

Koverman, Jill Beute.  I Made This Jar: The Life and Works of the Enslaved African-American Potter, Dave.  Columbia SC:  U of South Carolina--McKissick Museum, 1998.

Mack, Tom.  “Dave the Potter.”  U of South Carolina--Aiken. November 5, 1999.

http://polisci.usca.edu/aasc/davepotter.htm

Roberts, Diana Lyn.  The Centrality of Ceramics in African Cultures.  Birmingham AL:  Birmingham Museum of Art. (2013?)

Sumpter,  Althea. “Geechee and Gullah Culture.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia, 2006.  http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/geechee-and-gullah-culture

Todd, Leonard. Carolina Clay: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter, Dave.  W.W. Norton, Fall 2008.  (See also Todd’s website: http://leonardtodd.com/)

Trull, Armando.  “Smithsonian Unveils New ‘American Stories’ Exhibit.’  WAMU 88.5 (American University Radio).  12 April 2012.  http://wamu.org/news/morning_edition/12/04/12/smithsonian_unveils_new_american_stories_exhibit

Turner, Lorenzo Dow.  Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect (new edition).  Columbia SC:  U of South Carolina P, 2002.

Wood, Peter.  Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670s through the Stono Rebellion.  London: W.W. Norton and Co, 1974.

Containing African American History: Coil Baskets, Face Jugs, and Dave the Potter – Part One

For centuries, African American history has been tightly contained by standard U.S. historical narratives.  Facts and figures have long been available, as well as slave testimonials and, more recently, initiatives in religious, linguistic, musicological, demographic, and ethno-archaeological studies.  Nonetheless, African American history frequently continues to be presented as: unknown, due to the lack of documentation (an excuse that is patently untrue), or secondary to whatever dominant narrative presides at the moment (the happy plantation darkie of decades ago, the slaves-as-immigrant-workers outrage of last year’s Texas textbooks).

All the while, objects of African American material culture – objects that have complicated and important stories to tell – exist right under our noses, in museums certainly, but also in yard displays, rural cemeteries, road-side markets, and eclectic (even mainstream) shops.

Here I’d like to consider objects that contain African American history in a special way – the containers themselves.  Because of the unwieldy length of this post, I’ve divided it in half:  this installment concerns coil baskets, and the upcoming one will address face jugs and inscribed stoneware by Dave the Potter. 

Coil Baskets

Anyone visiting Charleston or Savannah has noticed people selling sweetgrass baskets.  These containers are made from woven, tied, and coiled indigenous grasses; they range in size and complexity from simple ‘bread baskets’ to large, elaborate storage vessels.  What do these containers tell us about African American history?

First, the form and technique show telling similarities with basketry common both in the ‘rice coast’ (present day Sierra Leone and what used to be called ‘Upper Guinea’) and the western Congo (what used to be called ‘Angola,’ but comprising areas surrounding the mouth of the Congo river -- present day Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville; areas that were dominated by the Kongo culture).  Raw data concerning slave ship itineraries confirms that most slaves ‘imported’ to the greater South Carolina coast came from these locations. Indeed, the word ‘Gullah’ (referring to African-inflected settlements still extant along this coast) seems to be a portmanteau of ‘Angola’ and ‘Gola' (a subset of the Mende civilization prominent in the "Rice Coast').

Temne (Sierra Leone) coiled basket

Kongo (DRC) coiled basket

Second, these hybrid baskets attest to a preference of early South Carolina (broadly speaking, but as Charleston was the main slave depot, we can use the name to encompass the Southern Atlantic coast) plantocrats for slaves of a certain origin.  That would be: people from rice-growing regions and, more generally, people from swampily tropical regions.  Why?  Because rice cultivation was being promoted, and the prevailing colonial thought was that like thrived in like:  in other words, that slaves who came from hot, humid climates would last longer than slaves who came from more temperate areas. 

We’re talking now about pre-Revolution colonies.  Britain tried to regulate agro-business in its New World holdings, and ‘South Carolina’ was deemed optimal for rice production.  An unforeseen consequence, and no doubt a welcome one, was that slaves from preferred areas arrived with not only their bodies but also with their minds and memories.  Recent research shows that most advancements in rice culture – sluices, floodgates, canals, tidal-flood plain cultivation --- were due to slaves knowledgeable about rice cultivation in mangrove swamps. 

Women laboring in South Carolina rice fields, with a sluice gate in the background

Third, ‘South Carolina’ coiled baskets suggest what sorts of knowledge and material culture survived the Middle Passage and took root in the New World. Most plantation owners tried mightily to suppress African religious practices . . . and to prevent insurrection by mixing African ethnicities when possible.  The demands of rice cultivation made it difficult to have a diversified slave labor force, however, as revolts such as the ‘Angola’-led Stono Rebellion of 1739 attest.  Coiled baskets indicate that the two major enslaved ethnicities in South Carolina found common ground not only in their suffering – rice cultivation was particularly brutal and deadly – but also in analogous cultural traditions.

Basket weaving in Sierra Leone, c. 1900

Basket weaving in South Carolina, c. 1900

Both Kongo and Rice Coast peoples had long-standing coiled basketry practices: South Carolina sweetgrass baskets became hybrid African forms that contain the particular slave history of the region, rather like how Geechee – the creole developed in the greater South Carolina coastal area – exhibits a significant blend of ‘Rice Coast’ and ‘Angolan’ linguistic elements.  Coiled baskets are utilitarian objects; so, unlike more overtly religious art forms such as spirit figures or coded drumming, they were not prohibited.  Indeed, as some of these objects, like winnowing baskets, were directly connected to rice cultivation, their production was encouraged.  Similarly, Geechee, like other slavery-born creoles, was tolerated because it facilitated work-related communication and, due to its dependence on ‘master language’ strata, was easily learned by whites and was seen as less subversive than uncreolized and, to whites, impenetrable African languages. 

We’re fortunate that an African-based craft is still practiced largely unchanged after 250 or more years.  Coil baskets retain essential forms, techniques, and functions from their Rice Coast and Kongo origins while bearing witness to the history of slavery in the South Carolina to Georgia coastal corridor.

(Next up:  Face Jugs, Dave the Potter, and Selected References)

Cam and the Donald: Separated at Birth?

Well, probably not.  Factors like age, race, profession, skills, background, geography, wealth (although that may not be all that disparate) are so radically different that any equation between Cam Newton and Donald Trump seems downright silly.  And yet . . .

To backtrack: as those of you who’ve read my 2015 blogs know, I’ve written a lot about politics.  And therefore, about Donald Trump (the biggest, most riveting, and, to me, most distressing political story in this political cycle).  I’ve compared him to everyone from Benito Mussolini to Miley Cyrus.  I’ve tried to analyze his appeal.  And, recently, I’ve given up. 

What more is there to say?  Either the remnants of the Republican establishment will figure out a way to stop his nomination or they won’t.  Anything outrageous that Trump bellows is no longer news, as it never negatively affects his poll numbers.  None of his challengers, evidently, is sane or strong enough to stop him. 

So I’ve not been moved to write anything more about Donald Trump.  Which means that I haven’t been able to write about this year’s politics, as he’s still the fulcrum of any political discussion.  In other words, I’ve had zero-zilch new ideas about Trump’s appeal.  My bad.  And my handy explanation for blogosphere silence (which of course has additional sources, like the busyness of the holidays and general scrivener sloth).

Enter the NFL playoffs.  A more fun diversion than politics, at least for a while – particularly because I had two favorite teams in contention, my birth-State team (Green Bay Packers) and my now-live-here team (Carolina Panthers).  The Panthers have prevailed and will be in the Super Bowl.  Hooray, and party on.

Cruising sports sites and listening to ‘Mike & Mike in the Morning,‘ I’ve become interested in the backlash against the Panther’s exceptional quarterback, Cam Newton.  “He’s arrogant.”  “ He’s disrespectful.”  (This latter charge stems largely from the bogus reports surrounding his batting away of the twelfth-man Seahawks ‘flag’ that was tossed in his face and has culminated in a self-promoting petition to ban Newton from appearing again in the Seattle stadium.)  “He’s neglecting the children on the second row to whom he doesn’t give footballs after a touchdown” (oh pleeeeeze).

The not-so-hidden objection to Cam Newton, it seems to me, is he’s a supremely talented Black quarterback who is not ‘properly’ deferential to the overwhelmingly White male powers-that-be who’ve dominated professional football forever.  And/or who doesn’t demonstrate the stoically bland ‘leadership’ qualities equated for decades to the (White) quarterback position. Instead, Newton’s enjoying his accomplishments, and those of his excellent team, on his own terms.  Dancing!  Posing for pictures!  Distributing footballs to children!  Inspiring his team, and its fans, to revel in and build upon success!

What Cam Newton embodies is absolute joy at succeeding at the game.  In his case, it’s professional (before that, for him, college) football.  He’s really, really good at the game he plays, and he doesn’t hide the pleasure it gives him.  That joy is infectious (unless you’re a zipped-up partisan of another football team).  It’s also (to employ an over-used buzz word) aspirational.  Wouldn’t we all want to be so good at what we do that we can celebrate our accomplishments, and those of the people who’ve helped us achieve them, with full-throttle happiness?

Now, why does Cam Newton make me think of Donald Trump? 

What I hadn’t considered, until this past weekend watching the Panthers pulverize the Cardinals, was that Trump exhibits the same joy in winning his game-of-choice as does Cam Newton.  A similar swagger.  A similar ‘I’m winning, so deal with it’ attitude.  A similar invitation to join the winning team, of which he’s the star.

And another similarity, which became clear only after Trump’s recent and brilliant ‘to-hell-with-the-debate-I’m-starting-a-different-game’ maneuver: Donald Trump is flexible.  Versatile.  He plays many roles, switching them at a drop of a hat or a slip of the tongue.  So far, he’s able to exploit almost any situation, turning it to his advantage. His conventional-wisdom-breaking nimbleness has flummoxed his political opponents and professional pundits alike.  Like Cam Newton, who—depending on the game situation—can be quarterback, wide receiver, running back, and probably punter and defensive tackle. 

Football is a game of positions: specific skills are honed for specific roles (kickers, offensive linemen, receivers, etc. etc.). Cam Newton shatters these boundaries—and in so doing, is shattering lingering prejudice about Black quarterbacks.  Not very long ago, Black quarterbacks were either non-existent or a rarity (a rarity judged harshly – see Jimmy the Greek or Warren Moon’s early exile to the CFL), even as the NFL became more and more dominated by Black players in most other positions. 

In a roughly analogous manner, Donald Trump is shattering the boundaries between ‘professional politicians’ and ‘businessmen,’ between party purists and party players, even between the serious business of governing and the not-so-serious business of entertainment. 

The point here is a simple one.  Both Cam Newton and Donald Trump are mold-breakers.  Exuberant, successful (so far), and in-your-face mold-breakers.  I didn’t see this aspect of Trump’s appeal until last weekend’s Panthers’ domination of the Cardinals (and I will resist comparing Carson Palmer to Jeb! Bush).

 

That said, I’m all in for Cam Newton.  I’m all out for Donald Trump: out of patience, out of outrage, and probably out of anything more to say.  Sports and politics may have similarities—the latter becoming increasingly like the former as a series of reality-TV cage matches.  But their differences, and those of their current headliners, should be vastly more important. 

For one thing, Cam seems to be a genuinely good guy, a young man who has matured (as young people are wont to do) into responsible—and in his case, exemplary (see all his community outreach initiatives)—adulthood.  In contrast, the Donald seems to be a toxic narcissist who has become more self-absorbedly juvenile as he’s aged. 

For another thing, Cam Newton’s Panthers’ winning or losing the Super Bowl will not have much impact on the nation or the world (apart from further discrediting lingering racist ideas about who’s genetically disqualified from sports leadership positions).  Donald Trump’s partisans (and Trump’s own protean media-savviness) propelling the Apprentice-meister into becoming the actual Republican Presidential nominee would have a huuuuge national and global impact. 

One that I fear would be disastrous. Which is why their strategic and, yes, flexible-talent similarities are interesting, perhaps illustrative, but no more than that.  Cam Newton and Donald Trump were separated at birth by a host of factors: not the least of which is that one seems to have imbued with common decency and fellow-feeling, whereas the other . . . not so much, or not at all. 

Tristesse Times Two

Like almost everyone, I’m stunned and saddened by Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris.  The human carnage is awful, the geopolitical implications are chilling, and the fear that this is just an opening salvo in a mobile, hydra-headed Isis/Isil/Daesh/Al Qaeda/Islamic Extremist assault on the West, in the West, is palpable. 

That this horror occurred in Paris magnifies the sadness.  For many United States citizens, Paris is the epitome of sophisticated, romantic culture – not to mention that France is our country’s oldest ally.  An exploded Russian airline in the Sinai, a series of hideous bombings in Beirut, terrorist assaults in Barcelona, the continuing and deadly Israeli-Palestinian strife, even the fairly recent semi-successful plots in London, have not touched us as viscerally.  On Facebook, for example, people are superimposing the Tricoleur on their avatars.  No one I know did this when a Russian plane was shot down earlier this month, resulting in even more casualties of innocents. 

Not a criticism; a triste observation.

To risk sounding like NRAniks who predictably say ‘this is not the time to discuss gun control’ after some horrific mass shooting . . . this is probably not the time to rehearse the West’s often dismal colonial and neo-colonial and current history in the Middle East.  Certainly we can learn from history, but historical memory and ‘facts’ are not static.  Historicity changes as current events change.  They’ve changed now.

Which brings me to the second sadness.  It wasn’t that long ago that a serious threat to our country or to our key allies was addressed by a unified U.S. populace, including and importantly, elected or wanting-to-be-elected politicians.  Evidently, the recent past is no longer operative.

It’s disgusting that a handful of high-profile United States politicians are using the Paris tragedy to immediately bash President Obama (and anyone connected with him).  There are legitimate questions about the current administration’s Middle East policy, but for heaven’s sake, give the President more than a few hours to meet with his highest-level advisors, foreign leaders, CIA spymasters, cyber-security forces  . . . and give him the benefit of the doubt that he is actually doing these things. 

Even if we cannot and should not bid adieu to tristesse, let us act thoughtfully without sentimentality or partisanship.

Consider carefully that it is not the people who call for peace but those who make peace who are commended. For there are those who talk but do nothing.

Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be an endless preoccupation. You must dwell also on the glad remembrance of God's loving-kindness; otherwise, sadness will harden the heart and lead it more deeply into despair.

--St. Bernard of Clairvaux