Staying power --- resiliency --- to keep showing up --- to be you....beautifully, boldly you.
Those qualities have always attracted me and persons who evidence them have my respect and admiration.
This week, we mourn the passing on of the writer, poet, advocate, presence and passion Maya Angelou. Almost twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to hear her perform live and what stayed with me from that performance was first, that deep, elegant, rich voice and second, that the spoken word when delivered from the soul spot can captivate and capture an audience.
When I learned of her passing, I tweeted that in her memory I would have a hot dog and a Corona for Maya said, "I love a Hebrew national hot dog with an ice cold Corona, no lime. If the phone rings I won't answer it until I'm done." Now that's my kind of woman (although I do like a slice of lime in my Corona) -- a woman totally comfortable with herself and present to the moment....the phone call can wait...the email can wait...the knock at the door can wait... it's the time for a cold beer and a hot dog.
Before the poem at President Clinton's first inaugural, Maya was perhaps best known for her poem, "Still I Rise" and the opening lines:
"You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise."
I encourage you to read the whole poem. Better yet, commit it to memory. Better still, live that self-awareness and contained fire.
This week I was in Harrisburg for a meeting and the Harrisburg Senators, the city's Double-A minor league baseball team, were in town so I walked to the park to catch a game. It was a delight! What really impressed me was the age of some of the players --- 29, 30, 31. For a baseball player that's nearing old age and to still be playing on the Double-A level....whoa. Yet, they were out there enjoying playing the game, taking their cuts and inning after inning hustling to their positions in front of the 2500 fans who gathered. Their love of what they were doing, playing the game of baseball kept them showing up.
I've been doing an on-line course based on the book by Sister Joan Chittister, OSB called "Following the Path." The book is about answering one's call and doing what one has been gifted to do and placed on this earth to accomplish. I believe we each are called...it's not just a clergy thing. A hint on what that calling may be is that which when you are doing it you feel most alive, most present and have no sense of time nor do you check the clock.
Whatever one's calling...by all means and purposes and with passion and preparation...do it!
By the living of it, one will be most alive and that is a blessing that abounds and resounds!
sj;