I’m lacing up my running shoes and finishing the last sip of my coffee when I give my Twitter account one more glance before I start to close the lid on my laptop. But, then something catches my eye and I stop to read a common headline that is scrolling in from different people by the minute. “Maya Angelou, writer and poet, dies at age 86.” As if we’re old acquaintances, I pause and take a deep breath – thinking about how we met and how she influenced me without her even knowing the impact.
A heart can be found in this poetry book I wrote for my Nana in 1987.
Maya Angelou and I met in college. It was in Poetry 101. I met her through the eyes of my wonderfully-eccentric professor who, I’m quite sure, idolized Angelou for her strength and raw authenticity. At the time, I had not yet developed a genuine appreciation for Maya Angelou – still so enamored with beatnik poet Jack Kérouac. But, I had yet to take a real poetry course and was naive to the self-awareness journey I was about to embark upon. My professor, however, was excited to share what she already knew – that Angelou was a fearless warrior for equality and peace. Her gift, buried within her angst, was the rare ability to express her message of renewal and hope in rhythm and prose.
As I select my music playlist and take my first steps down the driveway and into the dawning day, I recall how Maya Angelou and my poetry professor helped me see the world in a different way. As I run, I am reminded of the new perspective I gained as a college freshman – it’s poetry in motion of sorts. Like writing poetry, sometimes when I’m on the road, it really does feel as if God spreads out His canvas in front of me and together we paint it into life with each footfall. I remember how hard the first year of school was for me and how lost I felt in an endless sea of people. But, when I received my poetry assignment each week, it was as if I saw everything with more intensity – as if I had gained a supernatural ability to see through the cacophony of life and focus in on details that were brighter, more vibrant, and beautifully magnified.
There is warm breeze this morning as I head up my first hill and look to the East where the sun is merely an orange glow along the horizon reaching up ever-so-slowly to kiss the low-lying cloud cover. I had forgotten most of Maya Angelou’s words from college, but this quote shared by one of my Twitter followers reminded me of how the Hound of Heaven tracked me down on my Thanksgiving run less than eight months ago.
“Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.”
Yes, in the quiet of the run, I do pray. And, on that peaceful Thanksgiving morning I finally heard the voice of God. He had never left me – even though I was sure I didn’t deserve Him and ran to escape the pain of being unwanted. I think back on what God looked like to me when I was so in love with the idea of being a Catholic. Then, I remember one specific poetry assignment that allowed me to dig deep into my heart and use imagery to explain what I saw there. This was what I wrote after sitting near the lake on the Rutgers Campus one early spring afternoon in 1986.
The Innocent Sinner
Up the marble steps
Through the massive doors
The boy enters
With apprehension.He is alone and inside
The smell stifles him.
It is musty like the attic.
Looking up, he shivers.Glass, blood, death, suffering.
His knees are weak as he creeps
Farther into the darkness
Is this his punishment?
Is this the journey to Hell?A dead man hangs
There is no escape.
He slips into complete isolation
He is trapped
Within four walls of guilt.
And then a voice
“Bless me Father for I have sinned.”
I wrote this poem at a time when I believed that being a Catholic and following all the rules and doing all the good works would bring me closer to a loving God. But, the poem reveals that – deep down – I knew I could never be good enough. I would always be a sinner who could never earn the grace of God on my own. It was a revelation for me that, sadly, was the beginning of the end – the realization that religion was not for the girl who was unable to feel the love of God.
But, buried in the poem was a self-awareness that would serve me well in the long journey ahead. I never stopped looking – looking for something that would free me from the bondage of this oh-so hopeless world and help me find peace. Living life through the eyes of a poet was the gift I needed to soften my heart and open my mind to a new understanding of Christianity – believing that God loves me by grace alone through faith alone. He does not love because of my works; He loves because of His love. All because Christ died for us and took away our sins so we could be perfect in the eyes of the Lord. Thanks to the poetry of Maya Angelou I now understand the poetry of the Gospel.
