*sigh* I used to update my blog. I used to be moving and shaking and thinking and writing. Now I'm a slug. Summer just makes me want to lie next to the pool and read magazines. Also, there are so many big things overwhelming me about other people -- both good and bad. Amy's report from after her mastectomy came back not so good. Baby Bennet is fighting for his life in a way no newborn should have to. Jack got GREAT NEWS from the oncologist the day after his great-grandma died. Some big thoughts and decisions at my home that I'm not at liberty to share. Just a lot -- up and down, victory and defeat.
So, of course, for a little light reading I picked up Maya Angelou's "Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now." I'm kidding -- Maya Angelou is anything but light reading. She has deep and profound thoughts and her writing is not to be gulped but sipped and swirled about the head. I read just a little a day and came across something I must cling to:
She is recounting that she was raised in a Christian home where her single mother would say, "I will step out on the word of God." But in her early 20's, Maya decided she was too smart and sophisticated to believe in God. But a voice teacher had her read a poem that ended with these words: "God loves me." The teacher had her read the last line again. And again. And again until:
"After about 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, I could try great things, learn anything, achieve anything. For what could stand against me with God, since one person, any person with God, constitutes the majority?"
