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| (c) davetoaster https://openverse.org/image/collection?source=flickr&creator=davetoaster |
L. R. Knost
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| (c) quinn.anya |
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
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’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
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 that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hail
Life doesn’t frighten me at all
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.
Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don’t frighten me at all
Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane
That doesn’t frighten me at all.
I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won’t cry
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.
Tough guys in a fight
All alone at night
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.
Panthers in the park
Strangers in the dark
No, they don’t frighten me at all.
That new classroom where
Boys pull all my hair
(Kissy little girls
With their hair in curls)
They don’t frighten me at all.
Don’t show me frogs and snakes
And listen for my scream,
If I’m afraid at all
It’s only in my dreams.
I’ve got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve,
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.
Life doesn’t frighten me at all
Not at all
Not at all
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.
Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. There can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here.
– Clarissa Pinkola Estés
--St. Teresa of Avila
(c) Hector Viveros Lee
Resistencia
No te rindas,
aunque a veces duela la vida.
Aunque pesen los muros
y el tiempo parezca tu enemigo.
No te rindas,
aunque las lágrimas surquen tu rostro y tu entraña
demasiado a menudo.
Aunque la distancia con los tuyos parezca insalvable.
Aunque el amor sea, hoy, un anhelo difícil, y a menudo te muerdan el miedo, el dolor, la soledad, la tristeza y la memoria.
No te rindas.
Porque sigues siendo capaz
de luchar, de reír, de esperar,
de levantarte las veces que haga falta.
Tus brazos aún han de dar muchos abrazos,
y tus ojos verán paisajes hermosos.
Acaso, cuando te miras al espejo,
no reconoces lo hermoso,
pero Dios sí.
Dios te conoce,
y porque te conoce sigue confiando en ti,
sigue creyendo en ti,
sabe que, como el ave herida,
sanarán tus alas y levantarás el vuelo,
aunque ahora parezca imposible.
No te rindas.
Que hay quien te ama sin condiciones,
y te llama a creerlo.
José Mª Rodríguez Olaizola, sj
Resistance
Don’t give up.
Although life sometimes hurts.
Even if walls weigh in on you
And time seems like you enemy.
Don’t give up,
Although tears
Mark you face and your insides
Too often.
Although the distance from your loved ones
seems impassable.
Althgouth love is, today,
A difficult longing,
And you are often beaten
By fear, by pain, by loneliness,
By sadness and my memory.
Don’t give up,
Because you are still able
To fight, to laugh, to hope
To get up as many times as necessary.
YOur arms still have to give
Lots of hugs, and your eye
Will see incredible landscapes.
Perhaps when you look yourself in the mirror,
You do not recognized beauty in you,
But God does. God knows you,
And because he knows you,
He keeps trusting you
He keeps believing in you
He knows that, like a wounded bird,
Your wings will heal and you will take flight,
Although now it seems impossible.
Don’t give up.
Because there is someone who love you
Unconditionally
And he calls you
To believe in him.
Amen.
Jose Maria Rodriguez Olaizola S. J.
(c) Kelly Latimore @ kellylatimoreicons
“If I had no choice about the age in which I was to live, I nevertheless have a choice about the attitude I take and about the way and the extent of my participation in it’s living ongoing events. To choose the world is… an acceptance of a task and a vocation in the world, and history and in time. In my time, which is the present.”
