Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  4 What sets one Southern town apart from another, or from a Northern town or hamlet, or city high-rise? The answer must be the experience shared between the unknowing majority (it) and the knowing minority (you). All of childhood's unanswered questions must finally be passed back to the town and answered there. Heroes and bogey men, values and dislikes, are first encountered and labeled in that early environment. In later years they change faces, places and maybe races, tactics, intensities and goals, but beneath those penetrable masks they wear forever the stocking-capped faces of childhood. Mr. McElroy who lived in the big rambling house next to the Store, was very tall and broad, and although the years had eaten away the flesh from his shoulders, they had not, at the time of my knowing him, gotten to his high stomach, or his hands or feet. He was the only Negro I knew, except for the school principal and the visiting teachers, who wore matching pants and jackets. When I learned that men's clothes were sold like that and called suits, I remember thinking that somebody had been very bright, for it made men look less manly, less threatening and a little more like women. Mr. McElroy never laughed, and seldom smiled, and to his credit was the fact that he liked to talk to Uncle Willie. He never went to church, which Bailey and I thought also proved he was a very courageous person. How great it would be to grow up like that, to be able to stare religion down, especially living next door to a woman like Momma. I watched him with the excitement of expecting him to do anything at any time. I never tired of this, or became disappointed or disenchanted with him, although from the perch of age, I see him now as a very simple and uninteresting man who sold patent medicine and tonics to the less sophisticated people in towns (villages) surrounding the metropolis of Stamps. There seemed to be an understanding between Mr. McElroy and Grandmother. This was obvious to us because he never chased us off his land. In summer's late sunshine I often sat under the chinaberry tree in his yard, surrounded by the bitter aroma of its fruit and lulled by the drone of flies that fed on the berries. He sat in a slotted swing on his porch, rocking in his brown three-piece, his wide Panama nodding in time with the whir of insects. One greeting a day was all that could be expected from Mr. McElroy After his “Good morning, child,” or “Good afternoon, child,” he never said a word, even if I met him again on the road in front of his house or down by the well, or ran into him behind the house escaping in a game of hide-and-seek. He remained a mystery in my childhood.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  FOREWORD Oprah Winfrey I was fifteen years old when I discovered I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings . It was a revelation. I had been a voracious reader since the third grade, yet for the first time, here was a story that finally spoke to the heart of me . I was in awe. How could this author, Maya Angelou, have the same life experiences, the same feelings, longings, perceptions, as a poor black girl from Mississippi—as me? I marveled from the first pages: “What you looking at me for? I didn’t come to stay … I just come to tell you, it’s Easter Day.” I was that girl who had recited Easter pieces—and pieces of Christmas poems, too. I was that girl who loved to read. I was that girl raised by my Southern grandmother. I was that girl raped at nine, who muted the telling of it. I understood why Maya Angelou remained silent for years. I bonded with her every word. Each page revealed insights and feelings I had never been able to articulate. I thought, Here’s a woman who knows me, who understands. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings became my talisman. As a teenager, I tried convincing everyone I knew to read it. Its author was now my favorite author, someone I idolized from afar. I knew it was Providence when, more than ten years later, as a young reporter in Baltimore, I was given the opportunity to interview Maya Angelou after her lecture at a local college. “I promise,” I insisted, "I promise if you’ll just let me speak with you, I won’t take more than five minutes of your time." As good as my word, at 4:58 I told the cameraman, "Done." Which was when Maya Angelou turned her head, angled it to the side, and with a twinkle in her eye smiled at me and asked, "Who are you, girl?" First we became friendly, then we became sister friends. When she finally told me I was her daughter, I knew I had found home. Sitting at her kitchen table on Valley Road in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, listening to her read poetry, the poetry of my childhood—Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Little brown baby wif spa’klin’ eyes"—that was my favorite place to be: at the kitchen table, or sitting at her feet, leaning over her lap, laughing out loud for real. Soaking up all the knowledge, all the things she had to teach—the grace, the love, all of it—my heart was full when I was with her. Rarely did we ever have a phone conversation during which I didn’t take notes. She was always teaching. "When you learn, teach," she said frequently. "When you get, give." I was a devoted student, learning from her up to the moment of our very last conversation, on the Sunday before she died. "I am a human being," she would always say, "therefore nothing human is alien to me." Maya Angelou lived what she wrote. She understood that sharing her truth connected her to the greater human truths—of longing, abandonment, security, hope, wonder, prejudice, mystery, and, finally, self-discovery: the realization of who you really are and the liberation that love brings. And each of those timeless truths unfolds in this first autobiographical account of her life. I’m so pleased (and I know she is, too) that an entire new generation of readers will get to know Maya Angelou’s story and be better empowered to realize their own. If you’re a first timer (as I was so many years ago) or revisiting an old friend (which is how I feel, returning to these pages), you’ll notice that even as a young writer, Maya delivered the theme that prevails throughout this book, the theme that became her siren call, a mantra that would resonate throughout all her speeches, her poems, her works—and her life. She spoke proudly, bodaciously, and often: “We are more alike than we are unalike!" That truth is why we can all have empathy, why we can all be stirred when the caged bird sings. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  But surely, between 4 BCE and 66 CE , it was clear that the Jewish homeland, and maybe even Judaism itself, was living through years that would be fateful for the future. We have just seen that during those seventy years, there were so many instances of large-scale organized nonviolent resistance as to indicate a theoretical stance and a practical program for survival with dignity and integrity. Given that matrix, my next chapter on How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian focuses on the Baptism movement of John and the Kingdom movement of Jesus within it. By now you can probably guess my questions. One is whether either or both of those protest movements included violent or nonviolent resistance to Rome. If the answer is negative, another question is even more difficult. Did either or both of them avoid present human violence since they expected divine violence in the future? If the answer, once again, is negative, will we find, as so we have often found across our biblical journey, that the assertion of divine nonviolence will be adapted into its subversion? CHAPTER 10Jesus and the Radicality of GodNot “Revelation”—’tis—that waits, But our unfurnished eyes— EMILY DICKINSON , “Poem 685” (c. 1863) I COMPARE AND CONTRAST the programs of John and Jesus with no intention of exalting the latter over the former, or vice versa. I am convinced that Jesus learned tremendously from John and that he eventually changed his own vision because of what happened to his mentor. Later, when he came to disagree with John, he was still very careful not to disrespect him. Furthermore, it was probably the abiding popularity of John that protected Jesus from Antipas in Galilee. “That fox” (Luke 13:32) would have calculated carefully how long before he could execute another popular prophet. “Wisdom Is Vindicated by All Her Children”MY FIRST QUESTION ASKS whether, even within that common matrix of eschatology, nonviolence, and martyrdom, the visionary programs of John and Jesus involve continuity or discontinuity, agreement or disagreement. On the one hand, Matthew gives them both the same announcement. First, “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’” (3:1–2); and, later, “Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’” (4:17). On the other hand, Luke makes their programs quite different as he has Jesus respond to John’s question from prison (7:22). To repeat the question: Are the visionary programs of John and Jesus similar or different? One rather fascinating indication of difference is in the Q Gospel—another source concerning Jesus that both Matthew and Luke used along with the book of Mark (“Q” is short for Quelle, German for “source”). It reports that opponents of John and Jesus, adversaries who disliked them both equally, described them like this: For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man [that is, Jesus, from Dan.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  A saint has been defined as ‘someone in whom Christ lives again’. The duty of real preachers is not so much to talk to men and women about Christ as to show them Christ in their own lives. People listen not so much to what they are saying as to what they are. (3) The real leaders, if need be, die in loyalty. They show others how to live and are prepared to show them how to die. As the Gospel of John says, Jesus, having loved his own, loved them to the end (13:1); and real leaders, having loved Jesus, love him to the end. Their loyalty never stops halfway. (4) As a result, real leaders leave two things to those who come after – an example and an inspiration. Quintilian, the Roman master of oratory, said: ‘It is a good thing to know, and always to keep turning over in the mind, the things which were illustriously done of old.’ Epicurus advised his disciples continuously to remember those who in the past had lived with virtue. If there is one thing more than any other that the world and the Church need in every generation, it is leadership like that. Then the writer to the Hebrews moves on to another great thought. It is in the nature of things that all earthly leaders must come and go. They have their part in the drama of life, and then the curtain comes down. But Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. His status above all others is permanent; his leadership is forever. Therein lies the secret of earthly leadership; real leaders are people who are themselves led by Jesus Christ. That figure, who walked the roads of Galilee, is as powerful as ever to strike at evil and to love sinners; and, just as then he chose twelve to be with him and sent them out to do his work, so now he is still seeking those who will bring men and women to him and bring him to them. THE MARKS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE Hebrews 13:1–6 Let brotherly love be always with you. Do not forget the duty of hospitality for, in remembering this duty, there are some who have entertained angels without knowing that they were doing so. Remember those who are in prison, for you yourselves know what it is like to be a prisoner; remember those who are suffering ill-treatment, for the same thing can happen to you so long as you are in the body. Let marriage be held in honour among you all, and never let the marriage bed be defiled. God judges those who are adulterers and immoral in their conduct. Let your way of life be free from the love of money.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  His secret lay in who he was, his own sense of identity and purpose, and above all his integrity in being true to himself and his faith. Born in the far north of Scotland, he was brought up in Motherwell, a steel-producing town south of Glasgow where his family settled when he was only five, and this was the kind of place where he felt most at home. Though his association with the University of Glasgow provided a focus for his life over almost fifty years, from his first day as a student in 1925 to his retirement from the faculty in 1974, he never became an ivory-tower academic, divorced from the realities of life in the real world. On the contrary, it was his commitment to the working-class culture of industrial Clydeside that enabled him to make such a lasting contribution not only to the world of the university but also to the life of the Church. He was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Scotland at the age of twenty-six, but was often misunderstood even by other Christians. I doubt that William Barclay would ever have chosen words such as ‘missionary’ or ‘evangelist’ to describe his own ministry, but he accomplished what few others have done, as he took the traditional Presbyterian emphasis on spirituality-through-learning and transformed it into a most effective vehicle for evangelism. His own primary interest was in the history and language of the New Testament, but William Barclay was never only a historian or literary critic. His constant concern was to explore how these ancient books, and the faith of which they spoke, could continue to be relevant to people of his own time. If the Scottish churches had known how to capitalize on his enormous popularity in the media during the 1960s and 1970s, they might easily have avoided much of the decline of subsequent years. Connecting the Bible to life has never been the way to win friends in the world of academic theology, and Barclay could undoubtedly have made things easier for himself had he been prepared to be a more conventional academic. But he was too deeply rooted in his own culture – and too seriously committed to the gospel – for that. He could see little purpose in a belief system that was so wrapped up in arcane and complicated terminology that it was accessible only to experts.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The writer to the Hebrews uses another wonderful word about Jesus and says of him that he remains forever (paramenein). That verb has two characteristic senses. First, it means to remain in office. No one can ever take the office of Jesus from him; to all eternity, he remains the introducer of men and women to God. Second, it means to remain in the capacity of a servant. In the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus provided in his will that his daughters would remain (paramenein) with their mother as long as she was alive. They were to stay with her and be her help and support. The papyri talk of a girl who must remain (paramenein) in a shop for three years in order to discharge by her work a debt that she cannot pay. There is a papyrus contract which says that a boy who is being taken on as an apprentice must remain (paramenein) with his master for as many days extra as he has played truant. When the writer to the Hebrews says that Jesus remains forever, there is wrapped up in that phrase the amazing thought that Jesus is forever at the service of men and women. In eternity as he was in time, Jesus exists to be of service to all people. That is why he is the complete Saviour. On earth, he served men and women and gave his life for them; in heaven, he still exists to make intercession for them. He is the priest forever, the one who is forever opening the door to the friendship of God and is forever the great servant of all. THE HIGH PRIEST WE NEEDHebrews 7:26–8 We needed such a high priest – one who is holy, one who has never hurt any man, one who is stainless, one who is different from sinners, one who has become higher than the heavens. He does not need, as the high priests do, daily first to offer sacrifices for his own sins and thereafter for the sins of the people. For he did this once and for all when he offered himself. For the law appointed as high priests men subject to weakness; but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appointed one who is a Son who is fully equipped to carry out his office forever. STILL the writer to the Hebrews is filled with the thought of Jesus as high priest. He begins this passage by using a series of great words and phrases to describe him.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  (2) The destined empire belongs to Jesus. The New Testament writers never doubted his ultimate triumph. Think of it. They were thinking of a Galilaean carpenter who was crucified as a criminal on a cross on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem. They themselves faced savage persecution and were the humblest of people. As the Yorkshire poet Sir William Watson said of them: So to the wild wolf Hate were sacrificed The panting, huddled flock, whose crime was Christ. And yet they never doubted the eventual victory. They were quite certain that God’s love was backed by his power and that in the end the kingdoms of the world would be the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. (3) The creative action belongs to Jesus. The early Church held that the Son had been God’s agent in creation, that in some way God had originally created the world through him. They were filled with the thought that the one who had created the world would also be the one who redeemed it. (4) The sustaining power belongs to Jesus. These early Christians had a tremendous grip of the doctrine of providence . They did not think of God as creating the world and then leaving it to itself. Somehow and somewhere, they saw a power that was carrying the world and each life on to a destined end. They believed, as Tennyson wrote in In Memoriam : That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. (5) To Jesus belongs the redemptive work. By his sacrifice, he paid the price of sin; by his continual presence, he liberates from sin. (6) To Jesus belongs the exaltation as mediator. He has taken his place on the right hand of glory; but the tremendous thought of the writer to the Hebrews is that he is there not as our judge but as one who makes intercession for us, so that, when we enter into the presence of God, we go not to hear his justice prosecute us but to hear his love plead for us.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  She and her maiden sister worked in the San Francisco city school system for over twenty years. My Miss Kirwin, who was a tall, florid, buxom lady with battleship-gray hair, taught civics and current events. At the end of a term in her class our books were as clean and the pages as stiff as they had been when they were issued to us. Miss Kirwin's students were never or very rarely called upon to open textbooks. She greeted each class with “Good day, ladies and gentlemen.” I had never heard an adult speak with such respect to teenagers. (Adults usually believe that a show of honor diminishes their authority.) “In today's Chronicle there was an article on the mining industry in the Carolinas [or some such distant subject]. I am certain that all of you have read the article. I would like someone to elaborate on the subject for me.” After the first two weeks in her class, I, along with all the other excited students, read the San Francisco papers, Time magazine, Life and everything else available to me. Miss Kirwin proved Bailey right. He had told me once that “all knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market.” There were no favorite students. No teacher's pets. If a student pleased her during a particular period, he could not count on special treatment in the next day's class, and that was as true the other way around. Each day she faced us with a clean slate and acted as if ours were clean as well. Reserved and firm in her opinions, she spent no time in indulging the frivolous. She was stimulating instead of intimidating. Where some of the other teachers went out of their way to be nice to me—to be a “liberal” with me—and others ignored me completely, Miss Kirwin never seemed to notice that I was Black and therefore different. I was Miss Johnson and if I had the answer to a question she posed I was never given any more than the word “Correct,” which was what she said to every other student with the correct answer. Years later when I returned to San Francisco I made visits to her classroom. She always remembered that I was Miss Johnson, who had a good mind and should be doing something with it. I was never encouraged on those visits to loiter or linger about her desk. She acted as if I must have had other visits to make. I often wondered if she knew she was the only teacher I remembered.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The second story is that of the seven brothers (4 Maccabees 8–14). They, too, were given the same choice and confronted with the same threats. They were confronted with ‘wheels and joint-dislocators, rack and hooks and catapults and caldrons, braziers and thumb-screws and iron claws and wedges and bellows’. The first brother refused to eat the unclean things. They lashed him with whips and tied him to the wheel until he was dislocated and fractured in every limb. ‘They spread fire under him, and while fanning the flames they tightened the wheel further. The wheel was completely smeared with blood, and the heap of coals was being quenched by the drippings of gore, and pieces of flesh were falling off the axles of the machine.’ But he withstood their tortures and died faithful. The second brother they bound to the catapults. They put on spiked iron gloves. ‘These leopardlike beasts tore out his sinews with the iron hands, flayed all his flesh up to his chin and tore away his scalp.’ He, too, died faithful. The third brother was brought forward. Enraged by the man’s boldness, the officers ‘disjointed his hands and feet with their instruments, dismembering him by prying his limbs from their sockets and breaking his fingers and arms and legs and elbows’. In the end, they tore him apart on the catapult and flayed him alive. He, too, died faithful. They cut out the tongue of the fourth brother before they submitted him to similar tortures. The fifth brother they bound to the wheel, bending his body round the edge of it, and then fastened him with iron fetters to the catapult and tore him in pieces. The sixth they broke upon the wheel ‘and he was roasted from underneath. To his back they applied sharp spits that had been heated in the fire, and pierced his ribs so that his entrails were burned through.’ The seventh brother they roasted alive in a gigantic brazier. These, too, died faithful. These are the things of which the writer to the Hebrews is thinking; and these are things which we do well also to remember. It was due to the faith of these men that the Jewish religion was not completely destroyed. If that religion had been destroyed, what would have happened to the purposes of God? How could Jesus have been born into the world if Judaism had ceased to exist? In a very real way, we owe our Christianity to these martyrs of the times when Antiochus made his deliberate attempt to wipe out the Jewish religion.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The writer to the Hebrews goes on to say that it was precisely because the great heroes of the faith lived on that principle that they were approved by God. Every one of them refused what the world calls greatness and staked everything on God – and history proved them right. The writer to the Hebrews goes further. He says that it is an act of faith to believe that God made this world, and adds that the things which are seen emerged from the things which are not seen. This was aiming a blow at the prevailing belief that God created the world out of existing matter which, being necessarily imperfect, meant that from the beginning this was an imperfect world. The writer to the Hebrews insists that God did not work with existing material but created the world from nothing. When he argued like this, he was not interested in the scientific side of the matter; he wanted to stress the fact that this is God’s world. If we can grasp the fact that this is God’s world and that God is responsible for it, two things follow. First, we will use it as such. We will remember that everything in it is God’s and will try to use it as God would have us use it. Second, we will remember that, even when it may not look like it, somehow God is in control. If we believe that this is God’s world, then into our lives comes a new sense of responsibility and with it a new power of acceptance, for everything belongs to God and all is in his hands. THE FAITH OF THE ACCEPTABLE OFFERINGHebrews 11:4 It was by faith that Abel offered to God a fuller sacrifice than Cain and so gained the verdict of being a just man, for God himself witnessed to that fact on the grounds of the gifts he brought; and, although he died because of his faith, he is still speaking to us.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  (2) The destined empire belongs to Jesus. The New Testament writers never doubted his ultimate triumph. Think of it. They were thinking of a Galilaean carpenter who was crucified as a criminal on a cross on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem. They themselves faced savage persecution and were the humblest of people. As the Yorkshire poet Sir William Watson said of them: So to the wild wolf Hate were sacrificed The panting, huddled flock, whose crime was Christ. And yet they never doubted the eventual victory. They were quite certain that God’s love was backed by his power and that in the end the kingdoms of the world would be the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. (3) The creative action belongs to Jesus. The early Church held that the Son had been God’s agent in creation, that in some way God had originally created the world through him. They were filled with the thought that the one who had created the world would also be the one who redeemed it. (4) The sustaining power belongs to Jesus. These early Christians had a tremendous grip of the doctrine of providence . They did not think of God as creating the world and then leaving it to itself. Somehow and somewhere, they saw a power that was carrying the world and each life on to a destined end. They believed, as Tennyson wrote in In Memoriam : That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. (5) To Jesus belongs the redemptive work. By his sacrifice, he paid the price of sin; by his continual presence, he liberates from sin . (6) To Jesus belongs the exaltation as mediator. He has taken his place on the right hand of glory; but the tremendous thought of the writer to the Hebrews is that he is there not as our judge but as one who makes intercession for us, so that, when we enter into the presence of God, we go not to hear his justice prosecute us but to hear his love plead for us. ABOVE THE ANGELS Hebrews 1:4–14 He was the superior to the angels, in proportion as he had received a more excellent rank than they. For to which of the angels did God ever say: ‘It is my Son that you are; it is I who this day have begotten you’? And again: ‘I will be to him a Father, and he will be to me a Son.’ And again, when he brings his honoured one into the world of men, he says: ‘And let all the angels of God bow down before him.’

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The things which we find it impossible to accomplish alone are always possible with God. (2) The second story the writer to the Hebrews takes is that of Rahab. It is told in Joshua 2:1–21 and has its sequel in Joshua 6:25. When Joshua sent out spies to spy out the situation in Jericho, they found a lodging in the house of Rahab, a prostitute. She protected them and enabled them to make their escape; and in return, when Jericho was taken, she and her family were saved from the general slaughter. It is extraordinary how Rahab became imprinted on the memory of Israel. James (2:25) quotes her as a great example of the good works which demonstrate faith. The Rabbis were proud to trace their ancestry to her. And, amazingly, she is one of the names which appear in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). The early Church father Clement of Rome quotes her as an outstanding example of one who was saved ‘by faith and hospitality’. When the writer to the Hebrews cites her as an example, the point he wants to make is this: Rahab, in the face of all the facts, believed in the God of Israel. She said to the spies whom she welcomed and hid: ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land … The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below’ (Joshua 2:9–11). At the moment when she was speaking, there seemed not one chance in a million that the children of Israel could capture Jericho. These nomads from the desert had no artillery and no siege-engines. Yet Rahab believed – and staked her whole future on the belief – that God would make the impossible possible. When common sense pronounced the situation hopeless, she had the uncommon sense to see beyond the situation. The real faith and the real courage are those which can take God’s side when it seems doomed to defeat. As the hymn-writer F. W. Faber had it: Thrice blest is he to whom is given The instinct that can tell That God is on the field when he Is most invisible .

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power . The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance. This book is dedicated to MY SON, GUY JOHNSON, AND ALL THE STRONG BLACK BIRDS OF PROMISE who defy the odds and gods and sing their songs

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  The sweet scent of vanilla had met us as she opened the door. “I made tea cookies this morning. You see, I had planned to invite you for cookies and lemonade so we could have this little chat. The lemonade is in the icebox.” It followed that Mrs. Flowers would have ice on an ordinary day, when most families in our town bought ice late on Saturdays only a few times during the summer to be used in the wooden ice-cream freezers. She took the bags from me and disappeared through the kitchen door. I looked around the room that I had never in my wildest fantasies imagined I would see. Browned photographs leered or threatened from the walls and the white, freshly done curtains pushed against themselves and against the wind. I wanted to gobble up the entire room and take it to Bailey, who would help me analyze and enjoy it. “Have a seat, Marguerite. Over there by the table.” She carried a platter covered with a tea towel. Although she warned that she hadn't tried her hand at baking sweets for some time, I was certain that like everything else about her the cookies would be perfect. They were flat round wafers, slightly browned on the edges and butter-yellow in the center. With the cold lemonade they were sufficient for childhood's lifelong diet. Remembering my manners, I took nice little lady-like bites off the edges. She said she had made them expressly for me and that she had a few in the kitchen that I could take home to my brother. So I jammed one whole cake in my mouth and the rough crumbs scratched the insides of my jaws, and if I hadn't had to swallow, it would have been a dream come true. As I ate she began the first of what we later called “my lessons in living.” She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully to what country people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations. When I finished the cookies she brushed off the table and brought a thick, small book from the bookcase. I had read A Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  She was one of the few gentlewomen I have ever known, and has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be. Momma had a strange relationship with her. Most often when she passed on the road in front of the Store, she spoke to Momma in that soft yet carrying voice, “Good day, Mrs. Henderson.” Momma responded with “How you, Sister Flowers?” Mrs. Flowers didn't belong to our church, nor was she Momma's familiar. Why on earth did she insist on calling her Sister Flowers? Shame made me want to hide my face. Mrs. Flowers deserved better than to be called Sister. Then, Momma left out the verb. Why not ask, “How are you, Mrs. Flowers?” With the unbalanced passion of the young, I hated her for showing her ignorance to Mrs. Flowers. It didn't occur to me for many years that they were as alike as sisters, separated only by formal education. Although I was upset, neither of the women was in the least shaken by what I thought an unceremonious greeting. Mrs. Flowers would continue her easy gait up the hill to her little bungalow, and Momma kept on shelling peas or doing whatever had brought her to the front porch. Occasionally, though, Mrs. Flowers would drift off the road and down to the Store and Momma would say to me, “Sister, you go on and play.” As I left I would hear the beginning of an intimate conversation. Momma persistently using the wrong verb, or none at all. “Brother and Sister Wilcox is sho'ly the meanest—” “Is,” Momma? “Is”? Oh, please, not “is,” Momma, for two or more. But they talked, and from the side of the building where I waited for the ground to open up and swallow me, I heard the soft-voiced Mrs. Flowers and the textured voice of my grandmother merging and melting. They were interrupted from time to time by giggles that must have come from Mrs. Flowers (Momma never giggled in her life). Then she was gone. She appealed to me because she was like people I had never met personally. Like women in English novels who walked the moors (whatever they were) with their loyal dogs racing at a respectful distance. Like the women who sat in front of roaring fireplaces, drinking tea incessantly from silver trays full of scones and crumpets. Women who walked over the “heath” and read morocco-bound books and had two last names divided by a hyphen. It would be safe to say that she made me proud to be Negro, just by being herself. She acted just as refined as whitefolks in the movies and books and she was more beautiful, for none of them could have come near that warm color without looking gray by comparison.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  He was greatly admired for his courage and endurance.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  7 Momma had married three times: Mr. Johnson, my grandfather, who left her around the turn of the century with two small sons to raise; Mr. Henderson, of whom I know nothing at all (Momma never answered questions directly put to her on any subject except religion); then finally Mr. Murphy. I saw him a fleeting once. He came through Stamps on a Saturday night, and Grandmother gave me the chore of making his pallet on the floor. He was a stocky dark man who wore a snap-brim hat like George Raft. The next morning he hung around the Store until we returned from church. That marked the first Sunday I knew Uncle Willie to miss services. Bailey said he stayed home to keep Mr. Murphy from stealing us blind. He left in the middle of the afternoon after one of Momma's extensive Sunday dinners. His hat pushed back off his forehead, he walked down the road whistling. I watched his thick back until he turned the bend by the big white church. People spoke of Momma as a good-looking woman and some, who remembered her youth, said she used to be right pretty. I saw only her power and strength. She was taller than any woman in my personal world, and her hands were so large they could span my head from ear to ear. Her voice was soft only because she chose to keep it so. In church, when she was called upon to sing, she seemed to pull out plugs from behind her jaws and the huge, almost rough sound would pour over the listeners and throb in the air. Each Sunday, after she had taken her seat, the minister would announce, “We will now be led in a hymn by Sister Henderson.” And each Sunday she looked up with amazement at the preacher and asked silently, “Me?” After a second of assuring herself that she indeed was being called upon, she laid down her handbag and slowly folded her handkerchief. This was placed neatly on top of the purse, then she leaned on the bench in front and pushed herself to a standing position, and then she opened her mouth and the song jumped out as if it had only been waiting for the right time to make an appearance. Week after week and year after year the performance never changed, yet I don't remember anyone's ever remarking on her sincerity or readiness to sing. Momma intended to teach Bailey and me to use the paths of life that she and her generation and all the Negroes gone before had found, and found to be safe ones. She didn't cotton to the idea that whitefolks could be talked to at all without risking one's life. And certainly they couldn't be spoken to insolently. In fact, even in their absence they could not be spoken of too harshly unless we used the sobriquet “They.” If she had been asked and had chosen to answer the question of whether she was cowardly or not, she would have said that she was a realist. Didn't she stand up to “them” year after year? Wasn't she the only Negro woman in Stamps referred to once as Mrs.? That incident became one of Stamps' little legends. Some years before Bailey and I arrived in town, a man was hunted down for assaulting white womanhood. In trying to escape he ran to the Store. Momma and Uncle Willie hid him behind the chifforobe until night, gave him supplies for an overland journey and sent him on his way. He was, however, apprehended, and in court when he was questioned as to his movements on the day of the crime, he replied that after he heard that he was being sought he took refuge in Mrs. Henderson's Store. The judge asked that Mrs. Henderson be subpoenaed, and when Momma arrived and said she was Mrs. Henderson, the judge, the bailiff and other whites in the audience laughed. The judge had really made a gaffe calling a Negro woman Mrs., but then he was from Pine Bluff and couldn't have been expected to know that a woman who owned a store in that village would also turn out to be colored. The whites tickled their funny bones with the incident for a long time, and the Negroes thought it proved the worth and majesty of my grandmother.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  It may not be given to everyone to enter into the fullness of the promises of God, but it is given to every one of us to live with such faithfulness as to bring nearer the day when others will enter into it. To all of us is given the tremendous task of helping God make his promises come true. FAITH AND ITS SECRET Hebrews 11:23–9 It was by faith that Moses, when he was born, was kept hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful – and they did not fear the edict of the king. It was by faith that Moses, when he grew to manhood, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and chose rather to suffer evil with the people of God than to enjoy the transient pleasures of sin, for he considered that a life of reproach for the sake of the Messiah was greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he kept his eyes fixed upon his reward. It was by faith that he left Egypt, unmoved by the blazing anger of the king, for he could face all things as one who sees him who is invisible. It was by faith that he carried out the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroying angel might not touch the children of his people. It was by faith that they crossed the Red Sea as if they were going through dry land and that the Egyptians, when they ventured to try to do so, were engulfed. T O the Jews, Moses was the supreme figure in their history. He was the leader who had rescued them from slavery and who had received the law of their lives from God. To the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, Moses was pre-eminently the man of faith. In this story, as James Moffatt points out, there are five different acts of faith. As with the other great characters whose names are included in this roll of honour of God’s faithful ones, many legends and elaborations had gathered round the name of Moses, and doubtless the writer of this letter had them also in mind. (1) There was the faith of Moses’ parents. The story of their action is told in Exodus 2:1–10. Exodus 1:15–22 tells how the king of Egypt, in his hatred, tried to wipe out the male children of the Israelites by having them killed at birth. Legend tells how Amram and Jochebed, the parents of Moses (Exodus 6:20), were worried by the decree of Pharaoh.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  It is easy to see how this passage can be read against the terrible happenings of these days. The book of 4 Maccabees has two famous stories which were undoubtedly in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews when he made his list of the things that the people of faith have had to suffer. The first is the story of Eleazar, the elderly priest (4 Maccabees 5–7). He was brought before Antiochus and ordered to eat pig’s flesh, being threatened with the direst penalties if he refused. He did refuse. ‘We, O Antiochus,’ he said, ‘who have been persuaded to govern our lives by the divine law, think that there is no compulsion more powerful than our obedience to the law.’ He would not comply with the king’s order, ‘not even if you gouge out my eyes and burn my entrails’. They stripped him naked and flogged him with whips, while a herald stood by him, saying: ‘Obey the king’s commands.’ His flesh was torn off by the whips, and he streamed down with blood, and his flanks were laid open by wounds. He collapsed, and one of the soldiers kicked him violently in the stomach to make him get up. In the end, even the guards were moved to amazed compassion. They suggested to him that they would bring him dressed meat which was not pork, and that he should eat it pretending that it was pork. He refused. ‘We should now change our course and ourselves become a pattern of impiety to the young by setting them an example in the eating of defiling food.’ In the end, they carried him to the fire and threw him on it, and ‘burned him with maliciously contrived instruments, threw him down and poured stinking liquids into his nostrils’. So he died, declaring: ‘I am dying by burning torments for the sake of the law.’ The second story is that of the seven brothers (4 Maccabees 8–14). They, too, were given the same choice and confronted with the same threats. They were confronted with ‘wheels and joint-dislocators, rack and hooks and catapults and caldrons, braziers and thumb-screws and iron claws and wedges and bellows’. The first brother refused to eat the unclean things. They lashed him with whips and tied him to the wheel until he was dislocated and fractured in every limb. ‘They spread fire under him, and while fanning the flames they tightened the wheel further. The wheel was completely smeared with blood, and the heap of coals was being quenched by the drippings of gore, and pieces of flesh were falling off the axles of the machine.’ But he withstood their tortures and died faithful. The second brother they bound to the catapults. They put on spiked iron gloves. ‘These leopardlike beasts tore out his sinews with the iron hands, flayed all his flesh up to his chin and tore away his scalp.’ He, too, died faithful.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  To his back they applied sharp spits that had been heated in the fire, and pierced his ribs so that his entrails were burned through.’ The seventh brother they roasted alive in a gigantic brazier. These, too, died faithful. These are the things of which the writer to the Hebrews is thinking; and these are things which we do well also to remember. It was due to the faith of these men that the Jewish religion was not completely destroyed. If that religion had been destroyed, what would have happened to the purposes of God? How could Jesus have been born into the world if Judaism had ceased to exist? In a very real way, we owe our Christianity to these martyrs of the times when Antiochus made his deliberate attempt to wipe out the Jewish religion. The day came when the situation ignited. The agents of Antiochus had gone to a town called Modein and had erected an altar there to make the inhabitants sacrifice to the Greek gods. The emissaries of Antiochus tried to persuade a certain Mattathias to set an example by offering sacrifice, for he was a distinguished and influential man. He refused in anger. But another Jew, seeking to gain approval and to save his own life, came forward and was about to sacrifice. Mattathias, moved to uncontrollable wrath, seized a sword and killed his faithless countryman and the king’s commissioner with him. The signal for rebellion had been given. Mattathias and his sons and other like-minded people took to the hills; and once again the phrases used to describe their life there were in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews, and he has echoes of them over and over again. ‘Then he [Mattathias] and his sons fled to the hills and left all that they had in the town’ (1 Maccabees 2:28). ‘Judas Maccabaeus, with about nine others, got away to the wilderness and kept himself and his companions alive in the mountains as wild animals do’ (2 Maccabees 5:27). ‘Others, who had assembled in the caves nearby, in order to observe the seventh day secretly, were betrayed … were all burned together’ (2 Maccabees 6:11). ‘They had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals’ (2 Maccabees 10:6). In the end, under Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers, the Jews regained their freedom, the Temple was cleansed and the faith flourished again. In this passage, the writer to the Hebrews has done the same as before. He does not actually mention these things. Far better that his readers should be moved by a phrase here and there to remember them for themselves.