Maya Angelou: A Tribute from Lauren Visser

When I was a young girl, I dreamed of being a writer.  More specifically, I wanted to be a poet.

As evidence of this desire, my mother still has a treasure trove of cards with endearingly unpolished poems written in them by an aspiring writer.

I entered a Young Author’s Contest in elementary school with A Collection of Monthly Verses.  When I won a plaque and a balloon for that collection, I fancied myself a true poet.

Two of my favorite writers were Gwendolyn Brooks and Maya Angelou. Despite the fact that we came from very different times and very different backgrounds, their words connected with me.

And inspired me.

(I also loved Emily Dickinson, but ever since someone told me that many of her poems can be sung to the theme song of Gilligan’s Island, they have never had the same impact they once held.)

Emily Dickinson might not have had staying power, but Maya Angelou did.  I was drawn in by her:

voice
words
passion
wisdom
authenticity

One of my favorite books – and the one I immediately pulled out upon hearing of her death – is Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now. Full of candor and wit, love and yearning, she shares some lessons of living.

The most powerful one for me, is the one I want to share with all of you.  It brings me to tears every time I read it and follow the opening of her heart.

May your hearts also be opened through the truth presented in the words below:

Excerpt from “Power of the Word:”

In my twenties in San Francisco I became a sophisticate and an acting agnostic. It wasn’t that I had stopped believing in God; it’s just that God didn’t seem to be around the neighborhoods I frequented. And then a voice teacher introduced me to Lessons in Truth, published by the United School of Christianity.

One day the teacher, Frederick Wilkerson, asked me to read to him. I was twenty-four, very erudite, very worldly.  He asked that I read from Lessons in Truth, a section which ended with these words: “God loves me.” I read the piece and closed the book, and the teacher said, “Read it again.”  I pointedly opened the book, and I sarcastically read, “God loves me.”  He said, “Again.”  After the seventh repetition I began to sense that there might be truth in the statement, that there was a possibility that God really did love me. Me, Maya Angelou. I suddenly began to cry at the grandness of it all. I knew that if God loved me, then I could do wonderful things, learn anything, achieve anything. For what could stand against me with God, since one person, any person with God, constitutes the majority?

That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I’m a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.