The Wisdom of Maya Angelou

This week I listened to a rebroadcast of NPR’s Diane Rhem Show that revisited an interview with Maya Angelou, who died this week.  As I contemplated what this woman overcame in contrast to the minutiae that I sometimes allow to discourage me, I whispered a prayer asking God to give me just an ounce of the grace to see good, passion to persist, and ability to forgive that this wonderful woman exemplified.

I thought it would be a fitting tribute as well as an inspiration to use this week’s FHC blog to feature just a sampling of the wisdom of Ms. Angelou.

Tami 

"I believe that each of us comes from the creator trailing wisps of glory."

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style."

"Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."

"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back."

"You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive."

"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest."

"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope."

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." 

  

"Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option."

"I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life."

"It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody."

"We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike."

"If you're always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be."

"The desire to reach the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise and most possible."

"Have enough courage to trust love one more time. And always one more time."

"Nothing will work unless you do."

"If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love."

"The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free."

"Nothing can dim the light which shines from within."

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."

 “Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances."

"While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated."

"My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return."

Money, Money, Money

Whenever the church leadership addresses the subject of money, a certain uneasiness arises. 

It seems almost illegitimate. 

We worship the God who owns everything, and with whom there is no lack.  So when the church, the body of Christ, asks for money, it seems a bit ironic. 

It is God’s church, and he owns everything, so it seems if it “needs” resourcing, he certainly has the ability to meet that need.  

But what is amazing is that God, who has no lack, has chosen to fund his work in the world by having people give to it. 

Whether you agree or disagree about the requirement of tithing in the New Testament, it is clear in the Old Testament that 10% of an individual’s increase was to be handed back to God.  

He even went so far as to say that, no matter what we may think, when we increase by, let’s say $100, we really only increased by $90, because $10 is the Creator’s money.

It is so clearly explained in the Old Testament. 

If you keep the $10 of the $100 increase, then you are guilty of stealing from God. 

It seems a little arbitrary and harsh. 

In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he has advice about storing up treasure, an inescapable principle.

He says,

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  Matthew 6:19-21

You may have never followed a stock price, but if you buy shares in a company, all of a sudden your interest in that stock price draws your attention. 

I think the whole concept of the tithe and offerings thing is to direct our attention to the place where God has his attention.  

Attention is foundational and just about all we have to give. 

Jesus is teaching us that our attention naturally follows our investment, and where we are invested gets our attention.

When we hold and hoard God’s resources for our self interest—in other words, when we steal God’s money and use it or invest it for our use, our self-interested, self-focused use, we will block our ability to focus adequately on God’s agenda. 

If our agenda for ourselves is getting nearly 100% of our attention, it will likely demand most of our economic resources, and where we spend the bulk of our resources will garner most of our attention. 

There’s simply not much left to put somewhere else.

The purpose of these words is not to try and guilt anyone into giving.

But they are words to call us all to honest accountability.  

It is inconsistent for us to talk Kingdom of God, church, and spiritual growth as if it were a high priority but then live lives that are penurious towards God and those things that grab his attention.

If we are going to choose not to honor God with our money, let’s be brave enough to at least say to ourselves that we aren’t going to be faithful in our giving, that we simply don’t choose to take God seriously on this one. 

We may take him seriously on, let’s say, the seventh day as the Sabbath, but we choose to believe he wasn’t as serious about the money stuff.

There’s huge room for improvement in mission alignment within religious organizations, resource allocation, and utilization.  However, even more important is the necessity for us to cultivate a desire to focus on the things God wishes to receive our attention.

So while God owns everything, and while he lets us manage some of his resources, he knows that the experience of giving away a portion—10% that’s not ours as well as some offering from the 90% he says we can hold onto and manage—will help turn our minds away from self and focus our attention on what’s important to our Creator.  

Andy McDonald

Martin Guitars, Nashville, and Marriage

Holding Grandma’s Tongue

This Mother’s Day I get to enjoy a completely new aspect of motherhood—being a grandmother!  My sweet granddaughter, Adelyn (pictured), is only two months old, and already she’s become a reason to stop in the baby section of every store I enter, a regular source of smiles and sighs, and a constant topic of conversation.  Woe to anyone who asks if I have any new photos!

Something very interesting has happened as I have watched my daughter and son-in-law parent this precious baby.  So much of what they know, how they process, and what they do is completely foreign to me!  I mean, babies are babies, right?  So how much about taking care of an infant can truly be different than it was back in the Eighties?  Well, a whole heck of a lot, I’m here to tell you!

From the birth plan, to nursing, to diapers, to sleep schedules, to the involvement of the daddy, to just about EVERYTHING—I feel like I’m in a whole new world of baby care. When my mother found out I was going to be a grandmother, I remember her warning, “The hardest thing is keeping your mouth shut because you want to tell them how to do everything!”  At the time, I wondered if this would be true.

In an essay by Andrew F. Walls entitled The Gospel as the Prisoner and Liberator of Culture, Walls suggests, “No group of Christians has therefore any right to impose in the name of Christ upon another group of Christians a set of assumptions about life determined by another time and place.”

Walls’ essay points out the vast cultural differences Christianity has embodied over the course of history and how each progression caused those going before concern that it wasn’t being “done” correctly.  Consider the angst the Sabbath-keeping, Torah-reading, ritual-keeping, circumcising Jews felt when their faith was invaded by Gentiles who held none of these things as sacred.  Yet Paul clearly stated in Galatians 3 that God declared the Gentiles righteous because of their faith, even though their faith did not look like what the Jews were used to.  Should we be surprised that Christianity continues to struggle as each new generation works out their own faith in their own culture?

I’m happy to say I haven’t had to battle with myself over giving unwanted advice to my daughter and son-in-law.  The fact is, I’m happy not to have the responsibility this time around, and I think they’re pretty amazing parents.  Will they make mistakes?  Sure – all parents do.  It’s part of the growth process.  However, if their decisions are informed and made with an unselfish heart for the one they love, they don’t have to be the same as mine were.

I wonder what would happen if each generation of Christians gave this same latitude to the next generation to come so that the wisdom passed down from generation to generation might also be found in the silence of acceptance and grace.

Tami Cinquemani

Never Give Up by Bill Crofton

“What does God know?” they ask.
    “Does the Most High even know what’s happening?”
Look at these wicked people—
    enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply.

Did I keep my heart pure for nothing?
    Did I keep myself innocent for no reason?
I get nothing but trouble all day long;
    every morning brings me pain.

Psalm 73:11-14 NIV

Whoever wrote Psalm 73 was obviously bewildered and a little bitter.  Feeling abandoned, alone, and in despair from cruel circumstance, he began to ask the crucial questions:  Does God realize what’s going on down here?  Does God know?  Surely, if he knew, he would do something.  Have I been wasting my time?  Why do I take the trouble to be pure?  Perhaps God doesn’t care.  Have I kept the faith in vain?  What’s the use if it does not matter?

We don’t know all that had happened to the psalmist, but we do know that he simply could not understand the prosperity and good fortune of the wicked and the hardships being experienced by the righteous.  It didn’t fit his scheme of things.  Goodness and good fortune should go together; wickedness and suffering should operate together.  If not, the psalmist concluded, then keeping the faith was a sheer waste of time. 

Have you ever asked some of these questions?  Have you felt the same frustration as the author of Psalm 73?  Sooner or later, all of us come to that intersection of contradiction in the journey that is called life. The good seem to suffer; the wicked seem to prosper.  The reality is, as Scott Peck put it in the Road Less Traveled, “Life is hard.”  All of life’s music is not in perfect harmony.  What starts out to be a symphony becomes a cacophony, and discordant notes often dominate the score.

I enjoy the wisdom of Charlie Brown, via Charles Shultz, and one particular cartoon came to mind.  Lucy was saying to Charlie Brown, “I hate everything.  I hate everybody.  I hate the whole wide world!”

Charlie says, “But I thought you had inner peace.”

Lucy replies, “I do have inner peace.  But I still have outer obnoxiousness.”

Later in the psalm we see that the author pushed through and kept worshiping and trusting in God.  He comes to the conclusion that the promises of God are adequate.  Out of the bitterness that had engulfed him, he says,

Then I realized that my heart was bitter,
    and I was all torn up inside.
I was so foolish and ignorant—
    I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.
Yet I still belong to you;
    you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
    leading me to a glorious destiny.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
    I desire you more than anything on earth.
My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
    but God remains the strength of my heart;
    he is mine forever.

Psalm 73:21-26 NIV

If you find yourself angry and bewildered, if you are trying hard to find some perspective on life and you do not fully understand, the psalmist is saying, “trust in God, trust in God and never, never give up.”

Bill Crofton