Eastertide
May 30, 2014

Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 2:1-12 

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.’ Elisha said, ‘Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.’ He responded, ‘You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.’ As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, ‘Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. — 2 Kings 2:9-12

 Maya Angelou is dead. When I heard the news, I tried to remember when I first read, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It is as if it has been with me forever. She is such a beautiful soul now in eternity. One I needed in my young adulthood. I looked to see when the book was written and had to smile to myself. It was published in 1969 the year I graduated from college. It was the year after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and Bobby Kennedy. It was the year after the tet offensive in Vietnam. It was the year after I had stuck my car in mud up to the axle on a residential street in Enid, Oklahoma doing voter registration in the black community. Having been raised on a farm I was pretty adept at traversing mud and actually never expected to have to use those skills on a city street. Some of the homes I entered had dirt floors housing humans singing in cages.

I must confess I am not as gutsy as Elisha was in our scripture today. I could never ask for twice the spirit of one of my mentors especially someone of the ilk of Elijah. I would aim for a touch of the hem of his or her clothing, and I would be wrong. Maya Angelou championed the value of every human being.  It was her gift to us.

Each of our gifts to the world is to be fully the human God created us to be applying the gifts we have with every ounce of our being. For me to begin I had to touch the hem first; to receive the double portion of spirit as the gift I could never earn. It is there for each of us.

Prayer: Thank you for the gift of Maya Angelou. May her legacy be the freeing of all the caged birds. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.