Knotty Musings

Ideas, philosophies, and evil plots to take over the world through love hatched here.


I Am Enough

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people
won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically
liberates others." ~ Marianne Williamson


Remove the Nots

Remove the Nots

Friday, July 3, 2009

The Creation

I have longed loved the imagery of this piece of literature recalling the Creation of the Earth. For an inspiring listen, Wintley Phipps presents it like no other:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byqRyMtxfCs


"The Creation"
by James Weldon Johnson
(God's Trombones, 1927)
And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:

I'm lonely -

I'll make me a world.

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,

Blacker than a hundred midnights

Down in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,

And the darkness rolled up on one side,

And the light stood shining on the other,

And God said: That's good!

Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light around in his hands

Until he made the sun;

And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.

And the light that was left from making the sun

God gathered it up in a shining ball

And flung it against the darkness,

Spangling the night with the moon and stars.

Then down between

The darkness and the light

He hurled the world;

And God said: That's good!

Then God himself stepped down -
And the sun was on his right hand,

And the moon was on his left;

The stars were clustered about his head,

And the earth was under his feet.

And God walked, and where he trod

His footsteps hollowed the valleys out

And bulged the mountains up.

Then he stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.

So God stepped over to the edge of the world

And he spat out the seven seas -

He batted his eyes, and the lightnings flashed -

He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled -

And the waters above the earth came down,

The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,

The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,

And the oak spread out his arms,

The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,

And the rivers ran down to the sea;

And God smiled again,

And the rainbow appeared,

And curled itself around his shoulder.
The God raised his arm and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,

And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!

And quicker than God could drop his hand,

Fishes and fowls

And beasts and birds

Swam the rivers and the seas,

Roamed the forests and the woods,

And split the air with their wings.

And God said: That's good!

Then God walked around,
And God looked around

On all that he had made.

He looked at his sun,

And he looked at his moon,

And he looked at his little stars;

He looked on his world

With all its living things,

And God said: I'm lonely still.

Then God sat down -
On the side of a hill where he could think;

By a deep, wide river he sat down;

With his head in his hands,

God thought and thought,

Till he thought: I'll make me a man!


Up from the bed of the river

God scooped the clay;

And by the bank of the river

He kneeled him down;

And there the great God Almighty

Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,

Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,

Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;

This Great God,

Like a mammy bending over her baby,

Kneeled down in the dust

Toiling over a lump of clay

Till he shaped it in his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.


Amen. Amen.
From The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume Two, Second Edition, 1053-1055.

2 comments:

  1. I had never heard or read this before. It is beautiful.

    Iris

    ReplyDelete
  2. A woman at a our church read it last year during Lent, though not as dramatically as Wintley but it captured my imagination.

    ReplyDelete