by Temi An
I sometimes find myself saddened into silence. Under the weight of grief, the brain signals that are supposed to tell my vocal chords to move don’t make it to their destination. The
inertia doesn’t just stop at my throat. My diaphragm heavies up like a two-tonne brick. My lungs pull like sacks of clay. My brain sinks into a marshland, far, far, away, in a galaxy
beyond language.
But it is in those same moments that my mind is most fruitful. Out of the silence sprout stories and ideas like sunbeams. Stocks of illumination sweet as Louisiana sugarcanes shoot up from the most arid fields of my internal world. How providential it is that the sword that pierced me is the same that cut open the floodgates of knowledge and understanding. Perhaps C.S. Lewis said it best. “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains.”
That’s what Maya Angelou taught me. She unveiled how eye-opening my most world-crumbling, earth-shattering moments can become. Her writings always shone forth this truth. I love Lewis and Salinger and Bunyan. But for Maya, unprecedented affections apply.
Maya’s own crumbling and shattering was at age 7. She was raped, and her rapist was found kicked to death after she reported him. Thinking her voice killed, she stopped talking. But Maya’s retreat into silence opened a doorway into a world of poetry and literature. In her silent world, Shakespeare and Maupassant, Kipling and Balzac, stepped out from the shadows.
Five years later, after devouring all the books in her school library, and countless others from the white school library, Maya was brimming with words to say. Boy, was she brimming with
words to say!
Her first major publication was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). Maya did sing her heart out—every page of her book reverberated with syllables and phrases almost too delectable for my intake. I savoured not just her beautiful writing, but her beautiful daughtering, her sistering, her friending, and all of who she was to the world around her. The radiance of a queen—that’s what she sounded like to me.
So, whenever I’m unable to speak, I think about this miracle of Maya’s-–the miracle of silence and the world of wisdom that it brings. I honour my silence.
The second thing Maya taught me is to have the courage to be mute, even in public. Maya stayed silent in a traditional Southern town where such was taboo. I imagine 10-year-old Maya strolling through her neighbourhood, shrugging her shoulders at all who wagged their fingers at her for refusing to speak. It’s clear I owe it to her to shine too, to be my best self, even in the teeth of backlash. Who has my Creator made me to be? I must live it out, sound it out, in my own silent way. So, I tread in Maya’s footsteps and affirm my place on the road of life—albeit with trembling feet.
Yes, just like Harriet who led countless Blacks from slavery in the South to freedom in the North, Maya is a modern day Moses who leads me out of the isolation of my house to inspire life-giving air amongst those in the village. She found a friend in her neighbour Mrs. Flowers. I know I too have kindred spirits out there worth finding.
Maya also taught me that I am not alone. Like Moses, she was called to speak, and her grace-sustained obedience tells me that I too am not far from the Angel of the LORD who gives me what to say, when to say it, and how to say it.
When I feel low, when I feel hopeless, when I feel deflated by the racism, the ableism, and all the other -isms that shut me into silence, I scan the horizon of my silent world, just like Maya did, to spot what steps out from the distance.
And I see my Saviour.
And He is brimming with words to say. Boy, is He brimming with words to say!
“It’s a portrait of my mother when she was in her 20s, and in that time period there was a lot happening to the world that was very traumatizing and violating for a young person, even
more so for a young black woman. She’s missing her hair or her “crown”, which embodies the indignity of having to endure so much with no recompense, so she sits silently. Her glare speaks for itself. She is broken but not defeated, and what God placed in her cannot be taken, even if other things are lost. Even without her crown of dignity, she is still dignified. In her silence there is a strength that cannot be broken. She is present and aware and still empowered by God who lives in her.”—David
“Your chords close in on themselves? Open your heart to me. Your lungs fill up with clay? I am the River of Life. I’ll wash it all away. Your brain feels like an elephant in quicksand? It’s just like I said before: relax and let me turn the hails of daggers into raindrops that grow trees in the driest deserts of your heart.”
These are the three lessons I remember through Maya in my toughest moments—in the moments in which I am saddened into silence: honour the silence, be courageous, and know you’re not alone.
Maya’s is a singing that floods my world with rays of hope. I can only imagine what her singing must sound like now, in her new home, standing before the King. How melodious she must sound, free from this cage that has become of our world. How colourful she must sound, no longer imprisoned by oppression and violence. How winged she must sound, looking back on her caged days with delight at the Master’s plan all along. Yes, she is singing a more glorious tune. Out from under the gaze of glaring eyes, and the wagging of fingers, she is singing a more glorious tune.
Temi An is a former church apprentice now training in pastoral care for Autistic people. She writes for a project called In God’s Time and Space, alongside artist David S.M.D. They
invite you to explore their work at www.igtas.org.
