THE SUBSTANCE OF SERVICE SHOW
REST IN PEACE MY BELOVED MAYA ANGELOU
Beloveds, I want to encourage everyone around the world to burn a white candle in their window, let us offer light to the spirit of my dear Sister, Maya Angelou, as she moves to the next level of her journey, let us offer her the same light and love that she has given to us. Let us lift her spirit the same way she lifted ours. Let us support her the way she has supported so many, inspired so many, loved so many.
SOME OF HER GREATEST SAYINGS:
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.
Maya Angelou
Change, Attitude
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.
Maya Angelou
Learning, Said, Forget
My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.
Maya Angelou
Education, Mother, Said
While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation.
Maya Angelou
God, Everyone, Remember
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.
Maya Angelou
Hope, Love, Work
Nothing will work unless you do.
Maya Angelou
Work, Unless
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
Maya Angelou
Music, Between, Loneliness
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.
Maya Angelou
Romantic, Love, Hope
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
Maya Angelou
Courage, Practice, Virtue
Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
Maya Angelou
Travel, Cannot, Friends
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Maya Angelou
Time, Shows
Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.
Maya Angelou
Inspirational, Rainbow, Cloud
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
Maya Angelou
Future, Past, Present
You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, 'I forgive. I'm finished with it.'
Maya Angelou
Forgiveness, Courage, Enough
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
Maya Angelou
Great, Story, Greater
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
Maya Angelou
Time, Beauty, Strength
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
Maya Angelou
Mean, Words, Takes
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.
Maya Angelou
Learning, Life, Able
All great achievements require time.
Maya Angelou
Time, Great, Require
Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
Maya Angelou
Good, Book, Child
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
Maya Angelou
Anger, Fire, Bitterness
We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.
Maya Angelou
Defeated, Encounter, Defeats
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.
Maya Angelou
Courage, True, Cannot
I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do.
Maya Angelou
Maya was born Marguerite Ann Johnson on April 28 1928. She had a tumultuous childhood with her parents' marriage being in calamity which eventually ended in divorce, and as a toddler she experienced sexual molestation at the hands of her mother's boyfriend.
Despite having a difficult childhood and living a hard life as a young adult, Maya emerged to become one of the most influential black female voices in the world.
Maya’s civil rights activism began when she moved to New York and joined the Harlem Writers Guild.
This was where she met other artists involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Shortly before Malcolm X’s assassination she had hoped to help build his new organisation that he had planned to grow.
However, Maya still persisted with the civil rights movement as she worked with Dr Martin Luther King Jr on civil rights issues before he too was assassinated.
She went from being a singer, a restaurant cook and struggling to take care of her son to publishing seven autobiographies and over 50 poems, books and short stories. She has also been the recipient of manyillustrious awards.
Maya Angelou's life is not one to be mourned but rather celebrated. She shared her light, love and passion with the world. And her work has been influential in the lives of many.
In celebrating her life we have chosen our favourite poem written by a woman who epitomized strength, intellect and beauty.
Phenomenal woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
- Maya Angelou
