| Augsburg Now |
 |
| Augsburg College > Augsburg Now |
|
|
|
||||
|
|
A
conversation with Maya Angelou Now Online exclusive extended interview I recently had a chance
to speak with Dr. Maya Angelou MA: Thank you so much for that TH: My first question ... what do you feel is one of the most important issues facing today's college student? MA: There is a full length of issues and it is hard to say which is most important. I think we are in a kind of moral crisis in our country. Young men and women have had a scarcity of people to pattern after; that is, role models are few and far between when it comes to morality. I will probably speak at length about heroes and sheroes because I think people live in direct relation to whom they have access. And, I'm sorry to say, a number of young people have chosen as their mentors and role models mega stars—a lot of people who are featured in the tabloids and on the silver screen and so forth. Quite often those are people who wouldn't give a fig if those young people lived or died. So, my encouragement is to look in the family, look in the church, look in the synagogue, in the temple; look around the school, look in history for people who had enough courage to live lives that mean something ... [a life] that is uplifting and encouraging and healing. I think that that is one of the crises. TH: I am very excited because my grandmother, who is my biggest role model—my grandparents raised me since I was 5—will be here in October to share the evening with me. MA: Oh, nice. I will be speaking about my grandmother who raised me as well. Some young people don't have that sort of relationship with that immediate parent, but usually, within the family, there are stories. And whether they are alive or dead, there are stories which can link a person to someone who lived 100 years ago. [A person] who can really be an inspiration and those are the people I like to talk about. Somehow the value of education has been reduced. That is to say, when it is used, or looked to as only a key to open the door of employment, then education itself is reduced. Education at it's best is meant to round out, to enlarge a person so that he and she can see the future and the past and find some reason for being in the present. If education is just used as the key to getting the three-car garage, the grand house, and two and a half children, then it has lost it's power. TH: That leads into something else I wanted to ask you about and that's vocation. Many students go to school thinking "I am going to school so I can get a job," not "I'm going to school to learn a vocation." What are your thoughts on vocation versus "just getting a job," and how have you defined your vocation? MA: I have many I am happy to say. I am a writer, that's how I define myself, but on the other hand I am a teacher. I used to think I was a writer who could teach, but over the last few years I think I am a teacher who writes. I do love to teach. The young man or woman who follows her passion or follows his heart is more likely to succeed than the person who follows the paycheck. If you find something you love to do and you stay in school and you get the training in how to do it, then it is likely you will succeed, and in every way. That is following the passion. Really, it is likely you will do well financially and in other tangible ways if you follow your heart and your passion. That is when vocation really is your calling—it is more than a job. TH: I graduated from high school and then went off to a small school in central Texas because that was what I was supposed to do. I ended up spending two years there, and while they were extremely beneficial years, they were very difficult for me. So I took two years off to perform National Service with AmeriCorps and that is where I found my passion. Getting out of my bubble so to speak and roofing houses in Georgia for people who needed it, in talking to people in Appalachia who did not have running water—I found a world that I did not know existed. Through service I discovered what gives me passion. MA: Yes indeed. TH: Augsburg is a community that is very big on community service—getting students out of the classroom and connecting the classroom experience with experience within the city. It leads into something else I wanted to ask you. Diversity has become a buzz term lately and in some ways might even be becoming a cliché. I wanted to know how you define diversity and what role it plays in becoming a more tolerant human being? MA: Just the use of the word has reduced what it originally meant, much like love, I'm sorry to say. Love is the most powerful condition on the planet and maybe in the universe. I love those socks. I love that sitcom. It is sad that diversity has fallen prey to that as well. The truth is, it is in diversity that we enrich our lives. That is true in one family; it's true in a house. If we had a house that had one color, the interior one color, and no relief in sight, it would just run us mad. If we ate the same meals at breakfast, dinner, and supper—I know, I seem to be reducing the larger meaning to something that is meaning less, but I am afraid it is not meaningless. We physically and intellectually and spiritually need diversity. God has provided us with the diversity of the seasons and the diversity of flora and fauna. So among human beings there is diversity among looks and personality and attitudes. It is wonderful to have those, we are enriched. We are made to see ourselves and others, made to see new things, as you mentioned Appalachia and Georgia. To hear new ways of describing the sunrise makes you see the sunrise with a different value. We should have it in our lives and understand that the tapestry of life is made up of many colors and threads. No color is more valuable than the other or less. No thread more precious or less than the other. They all make up the tapestry of life. TH: I think that is a great way to think and it comes down to defining what that word means in yout life as opposed to what society thinks it should mean for you. MA: Exactly. TH: I think that is what we have done with the word love; we say it so often it has lost its impact and meaning. You are part of a speaker series of women I have put together to speak at Augsburg—including Sarah Weddington, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and Judy Shepard, who is the mother of Mathew Shepard. My next question is related to Mrs. Shepard. I wanted to know if you feel that we as a society are becoming more tolerant or are we regressing and not moving forward like the media portrays we're moving forward? MA: Well, I don't even know if it is wise to ask that question. It might be, but let me say what I mean. I cook; it is one of my great enjoyments. Iím a very serious cook. TH: So am I, so I can relate. MA: Great. I bake occasionally. When a cake is baking or bread is baking I don't open the oven to see. I don't think I do my work any favor when I start poking about. I don't know whether we are becoming more or less tolerant and I don't know how to evaluate that. I know that we have the corps, such as the one you were in. We have FEMA. I know that we have the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. I know that in this country we have more charitable organizations then any other country I know. I know that we have had lynching. I know the stories of people being killed because they are black, or they are gay, or Jewish, or Catholic. I know that all theses things are hand in hand, you see what I mean. We have the outrageous intolerance and the copious uncaring. We need to have more caring than intolerance. It is maybe in series such as the one you have put together that we light up a little corner of where we are and then it is incumbent on each of us to let our light so shine, wherever we are. So our light will light the path of someone who is going astray and we have no idea to what extent our lights are doing that because we cannot know everyone. People see us, hear us, sense us, and go on about their business and become us. We never see them again. So I think, while it's still baking, I donít want to open the oven. But I do want to make sure the next cake I put in is even closer to what I meant. So that I can at least count on it without having to test it—count on it coming out right. The metaphor sort of gets boxed up. What I mean is that at some point the young person, like you Mr. Howard, and your content, must trust that what you are doing is right and effective. Or else you take a chance on becoming cynical and there are few things sadder than the young cynic because it means he has gone to believing nothing, from knowing nothing. TH: I have not thought of it in that way before and the cake reference sort of brings it all into perspective in my mind and I want to thank you for that. MA: Your're welcome. TH: We are entering the fall season where we are orientating new freshman to campus. What guidance would you offer college-age students who are fearful of change and this new situation and yet have the desire to help others and to make a difference? MA: My encouragement would be to give out a song—a spiritual, which is There is a Balm in Gilead. It's wonderful. (Singing) There is a balm in Gilead, to heal the sin sick soul. There is a balm in Gilead, to make the wounded whole, to make the wounded whole. If you cannot preach like Jesus, and cannot sing like Paul, you can tell the world of Jesus and say he died for all. There is a balm in Gilead. I did not think of the verse as much as I thought of the refrain—there is a balm; the idea is in their coming to a place where they can find the balm, which can heal not only their situation, but prepare them to heal the world. TH: Thank you for your time. MA: I must go; I have someone at the door. Thank you, Mr. Howard. Please come and meet me as soon as I arrive, I want to talk to you. TH: I will be there with bells on right when you pull down the street to meet you at the door. Thank you so much. MA: Bye, Bye. Love to you. —Thomas Howard ’02 is a senior in social work and is the major events chair for the Augsburg Student Activities Council, co-commissioner of Queer and Straight in Unity, and a McNair Scholar.
|
|||
| Copyright 2007.
Augsburg College all rights reserved. |
