There is a video that makes the rounds every few months of Maya Angelou being interviewed by Oprah. It’s a lot of star power in one video. The video is an excerpt of the whole interview and is only three and a half minutes so I commend it to you.
During the interview, Dr. Angelou recounts reading a book in which there is a line that says, “God loves you.” and her mentor says, “Read it again.” This exchange happens several times until the message breaks through and Dr. Angelou really understands that God loves her. With tears in her eyes, she recounts the moment this revelation really began to mean something to her and she says, “I can do any good thing because God loves me.”
Writing those words on a page – God loves you – feels weak and inadequate. As eleven letters in black and white, they seem as limp as yesterdays lettuce. They feel lifeless, like soggy leaves on a wet November evening. But, if you can take the leap, these sad little letters can take on a life of their own. They can start to transform your life.
God loves you. READ IT AGAIN. God loves you. ONE MORE TIME. God loves you!
What does this mean? It means you are free from holding on so tightly to that thing you did, you know the one. The one you relive in the dark nights when you can’t sleep. The one that you have held so tightly that it shines like a pebble worn smooth in river. It means those scars that you carry from living in this rough and tumble world, can become thin places – places where God’s light can shine through to others – instead of remaining knotted and raw. Those scars, whether you ever tell another living soul where they came from, can be a source of renewed and refreshed life, like the marks in Jesus’ hands. God loves you means that those weaknesses you fear and conceal from the world are, in fact, your sources of strength because they give you love and compassion and grace for the weaknesses of others. God loves you!
This simple sentence, God loves you, can open your life to love yourself and your neighbor and, as Jesus says, this is the heart of our faith. So be bold and be daring. Repeat to yourself that God loves you until you understand it with your heart and soul and mind. Repeat it until the tears run down your face and your cup is running over. Then go and love the world the way God does: freely and unreservedly.
When you really get it, that God loves you, you will know that life will still be hard, the road will still be long, the journey to justice will not be completed in your own day. But you will also know that you will never walk the Way alone. You will know that God loves you, and you love God, and God loves your neighbor, and you love your neighbor, and you will know that that is the beginning of the healing of the world. So read it again. Write it on a note card in your pocket. Make it the background on your phone. Put it on your heart and before your eyes. God loves you!
God loves you. READ IT AGAIN. God loves you. READ IT AGAIN. God loves you. ONE MORE TIME. God loves you!
St. Augustine's Chapel 