When I think back now, it was probably Diane who first introduced me to Maya Angelou, albeit unknowingly. Years ago when I was in my twenties, Diane sent me a small notebook with one of her letters. It was a pretty little thing. I still have it, with a green floral cover and a quote on the front: “What is true anywhere is true everywhere” by Maya Angelou. I thought it sounded wise, simple, and true.
And over the years, I only grew to admire Angelou’s writing, especially her poetry. I respected her public life; the way she was revered by her countrymen, both black and white North Americans, a major feat I thought for a country notorious for its racial tensions.
“Human beings are more alike than unalike, and what is true anywhere is true everywhere, yet I encourage travel to as many destinations as possible for the sake of education as well as pleasure.”
Maya Angelou
Her poem Phenomenal Woman helped me cope with growing up as a female, and as a vulnerable young woman in my twenties and thirties. I even had it as a screen-saver on my work computer for a time.
She was one of those writers who seemed so brave to me. It seemed that whatever work she put out there was well received by just about everyone. If you read more about her, you’ll find that she was even popular with US presidents. I wanted to write like her.
Hearing of Angelou’s death was like losing a member of my family. I cried and grieved her passing. After she dies, I wanted to own every one of her books. Whenever I wandered into a bookshop, I would find myself hoping one of them would be on the shelf. Alongside them would be works from other writers I admired – everything ever written by Joan Didion and Sylvia Plath; Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, Virginia Woolf, and Ernest Hemingway, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, Stephen King’s On Writing, and everything by Frederick Buechner. But alas, none of them ever appeared.
Nothing. Not one Angelou book anywhere. I’m beginning to think it’s God’s way of saying I shouldn’t read any of her works anymore, or own any of her books.
Letting go of a writing mentor
You’d think that my deep admiration for Angelou would have prompted me to read more about her life, her history, her faith. But I didn’t. She would be there on my periphery, a quiet goalpost as it were, but never did I think to type in her name on an internet browser and click on search.
It was a YouTube video that finally made me take that step. This was only within the last fortnight. I cannot recall the exact title of that video, but it had her name there, Maya Angelou, my writing hero, and of course, I clicked on it.
One of the video’s claims shocked me: that Maya Angelou had once worked as a pimp. I haven’t been able to verify that claim independently, so I don’t know whether it’s true. The video also claimed that Angelou belonged to the Order of the Eastern Star, an organization historically connected with Freemasonry. That YouTube video prompted me to look up those claims, and further searches revealed that Angelou did not believe that anyone can be a Christian, but could live their life toward becoming one.
But what do you become when you believe in, receive and confess Jesus Christ – Yeshua Hamashiach – as you Lord and Saviour? Doesn’t that make you a Christian?
What she said confused me. This was someone whose words I had allowed to influence me in some ways. Someone I had placed on the pedestal of my literary heroes.
Another site claimed that Angelou studied other religions and would often incorporate the teachings of those religions into her faith and values.
Perhaps this was why she was a staunch supporter of the LGBTQ movement, even going so far, according to the online post, to call three New York State Senators to advocate for ‘marriage equality’. Angelou was quoted as saying, “To love someone takes a lot of courage”. The 81-year-old said in, an interview with a newspaper, “So how much more is one challenged when the love is of the same sex and the laws say, ‘I forbid you from loving this person’?”.
I wonder if this is what she meant when she reportedly said in an interview, “I’m always amazed when people walk up to me and say, ‘I’m a Christian.’ I think, ‘Already? You already got it?’ I’m working at it, which means that I try to be as kind and fair and generous and respectful and courteous to every human being.” I suppose at the age of 81, she was still trying, still working at being a Christian. And failing.
I understand that everyone says the wrong thing from time to time. I certainly have. If you’ve read this blog for long, you’ll know I am still learning what it means to follow Christ faithfully.
But I had assumed that a writer whose words carried such beauty and wisdom would also recognise that creativity itself is not the highest good. For me, creativity only makes sense when it is rooted in God—the Creator Himself. As the source of all our good and pure inspirations, of wisdom, of purity, of creativity, of words.
With her many accolades, Maya Angelou, an esteemed essayist, poet, civil-rights activist had somehow missed that. To say that I’m disillusioned is an understatement. I had thought this woman was a true picture of what a woman writer could be. I now realise that she held many assumptions about morality and truth that I can no longer reconcile with my own Christian convictions.
What is true anywhere is true everywhere
Did I read too much into Angelou’s quote? Quite possibly. I had assumed that someone who spoke so confidently about truth would also believe that truth is consistent—that what is true in one place is true everywhere.
As I reflected on that quotation, I realised I wasn’t thinking merely about honesty or sincerity. I was thinking about Truth in the biblical sense. If Jesus Christ is truth, then truth cannot change from one culture to another, from one generation to the next, or from one celebrated writer to another. It isn’t ours to redefine. It is ours to receive.
For someone who claimed to have studied some of the world’s religions, who was undoubtedly well read and well travelled, and who spoke often about becoming a Christian, I found myself wondering how she understood truth.
For if you believe in God, receive the Bible as His Word, and confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, then you are a Christian. From there begins the lifelong work of discipleship—learning, repenting, obeying, and depending on the Holy Spirit day by day.
Following Christ means allowing His Word—not our culture, our feelings, or public opinion—to shape our understanding of truth. It also means speaking that truth with humility and love, remembering that every person bears God’s image and is free to respond to Him.
When I learned that Angelou publicly supported same-sex marriage, I realised that our understandings of biblical truth were fundamentally different. That was the point at which I knew I could admire her literary gifts without allowing her to remain one of my spiritual or intellectual guides.
Perhaps the real lesson was not about Maya Angelou, but about my own tendency to mistake beautiful words for biblical wisdom.
The older I get, the more I realise that eloquence and wisdom are not the same thing.