70 years ago, thousands of American, Canadian, and British forces landed on the beaches in Normandy in what turned out to be the decisive historical event of the twentieth century. That generation is rapldly passing as the youngest among them are now closing in on 90. This week, we are going to lift up a few of the personal stories of sacrifice that were made by members of Christ Church  and reflect on the virtue of sacrifice.. Our world continues to be beset by war and violence. It is important for us to remember the high cost that it inflicts on us all. And we honor those that suffered that we might not have to.

Maya Angelou was one of the remarkable voices of the choir of the American experience. She grew up in the most deeply segregated part of the South, in rural Arkansas. It is hard for Americans to believe that this region of the country was 70% slaves during the height of the slave economy. And the voices from the slave part of the choir were almost completely excluded until Maya Angelou and others of her generation wrote poignant reflections like “I know Why the Caged Bird Sings”.
                I remember first encountering the great contradiction of the South as a child. We were living in Little Rock and my father gave our maid a ride home. She lived in a shanty town outside the city limits that pretty much looked just like South Africa. Only ten percent of the homes were actually painted. Electricity was minimal and I remember how eerie they seemed because there were hardly any street lights or front porch lights, so darkness pervaded at dusk. The yards didn’t have grass, so some people raked the dirt in their yards to make them presentable. I remember seeing some windows that couldn’t afford screens, wondering what it would have been like to contend with the mosquitoes every night.  The whole experience was an awful baptism into the duplicitous hypocrisy of the world of Jim Crow. In our white world, my family professed allegiance to our maid like she was part of our family. But the society systemically humiliated and degraded blacks with a tightly controlled two tiered system of pay, housing, education, and health care.
                Maya Angleou recorded the deformation of character that was the common plight of black girls of her generation. In order to do it, she had to literally educate herself and transcend innumerable social obstacles to claim her self-worth and her inner dignity. There was a depth of profundity to her poems which combined the resonant tenor cadences of her African voice with reflections on inner worth and inner beauty in the midst of suffering and oppression.
She is rightly being praised for her contribution to the canon of the American experience and her work is a spiritual tribute to the indomitable quest for meaning and hope that flourishes in the midst of brokenness and despair. 

The Rev.