Happy first Advent Sunday!

No, if this is what you are asking yourself...I am not, but in a season of movies like "The Santa Clause" with Tim Allen - whom I love in Home Improvement, btw - and various versions of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" I also want to spread a word of joy.
Did you know that Tim Allen was arrested for cocaine possession?And for drunk-driving?

Word of joy, excuse me.

Because we are somehow waiting and hoping for the Saviour, even if we are not personally oppressed.
This gets me back on my trail: oppression, that is.
And something I want to share with you, as lately I have seen a parody of Maya Angelou on SNL - very amusing indeed - and she happens to be one of my favorite poets.


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 got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

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 my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.



"Still I Rise"
from AND STILL I RISE by Maya Angelou,
copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou.

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