Tonight’s inspiring music is “Still I Rise,” a Gospel / jazz anthem by Rosphanye Powell. Some words are hard to catch, and I apologize that I can’t get the closed captions working. Please note how the choir in this church setting sings with gusto (without sheet music!) and claps on beats two and four 😁 I am sending this song to Sacramento Master Singers, and maybe they’ll let the sopranos and altos share it someday!

And since you hip UU folks might be puzzled by what you’re hearing, her lyrics are not Maya Angelou’s poem of the same name. I reprint her poem below to remind us of the long road ahead still with racial justice. Here’s Dr. Angelou ‘reciting’ that poem; all my college humanities classes get this one!

For those few craving a pun: “The German government has recently issued a warning that, heading into the holidays, people should stock up on sausages, mustard,rolls, and cheese, preparing for a wurst case scenario.”

Please “keep on keeping on” in this Covid time, and be ready to share what you’ve been up to in our breakout rooms!

Blessings

Keith

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.