Daily Bread #129

Sometimes things are just hard. Maybe harder than we ever imagined they would be. In our lifetime anyway. I was raised with the idea of progress, onward and upward, building a world ever better, with more peace and more justice, because – that was just the way the arc of the universe was meant to bend.

But theses days racism, hate and violence are all growing and democracy, that fragile and always imperfect instrument, seems to be breathing its last breath as our skies fill with smoke. The very bones of the earth ache as the world weeps in despair. I am with her, weeping, as so many of us are. The death this week, of a righteous warrior for justice, feels like a final blow.

There is nothing to do but turn to Maya Angelou. Her words are what I need right now. Maybe they will help you too. .

When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall,

rocks on distant hills shudder,

lions hunker down

in tall grasses,

and even elephants

lumber after safety.



When great trees fall

in forests,

small things recoil into silence,

their senses

eroded beyond fear.



When great souls die,

the air around us becomes

light, rare, sterile.

We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,

see with

a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened,

examines,

gnaws on kind words

unsaid,

promised walks

never taken.


Great souls die and

our reality, bound to

them, takes leave of us.

Our souls,

dependent upon their

nurture,

now shrink, wizened.

Our minds, formed

and informed by their

radiance,
fall away.

We are not so much maddened

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of
dark, cold

caves.



And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms,

slowly and always

irregularly. Spaces fill

with a kind of

soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never

to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed. They existed.

We can be. Be and be

better. For they existed.

― Maya Angelou

And how do we become better? How do we channel that electric vibration they have left us?

Maya has the answer to that question too.

Still I Rise

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.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

― Maya Angelou

It is easy to forget how hard the struggle has always been. We need the great trees and the great souls. The redwoods, the Ruths, the Mayas, and the Johns. We need the Martins and the Medgers, the Lucys and the Harveys. We need you and we need me.

We do what we can do, each in our own small or large way. We put our shoulders to the wheel to keep it turning, or sometimes just to keep it from rolling too far down the mountainside.

We control only what we can control. We don’t give up completely, ever. The mountaintop’s promise still lives inside of us. For myself, I am still working hard to stay healthy. A small thing, you might say, but it saves me from despair.

Be well, stay safe, my friends. Rise, as you are able, rise!

L’Chaim!  Week 20 of “maintenance”: My average weight this week is down .9 pounds for a total loss of 183.4