“When you learn, teach.  At our best, we are all teachers….” – Maya Angelou

Everybody has a story….and a lesson….and I could not wait to sit through the Oprah Master Class with Maya Angelou.   Each decade….she could host a new class.  Each moment….she is a teacher…and those of us that are smart enough to listen understand the richness of every word spoken….like sweet honey to a bee. 

These are the notes taken carefully….and what has been learned from this Master Teacher….and from Maya Angelou’s Master Class. 

• “She moves through the world with unshakeable calm confidence….and a fiery fierce grace with abounding love.” – Oprah describing Maya Angelou.  What an introduction to inspire too…how would peole intruduce me?
• “It’s not what you do…but how you do it.”
• “Always say yes for a good thing…”
• On walking with confidence.  Maya describes a 19century song….”when it look like the sun wouldn’t shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the clouds.”  She uses this to describe finding strength and your confidence….”when I step up on the stage…when I stand up to translate, when I go to teach my classes…when I go to direct a movie, I bring every one who has been kind to me with me.  Come with me…I need you now.  I don’t ever feel I’ve had no help.  I’ve had rainbows in my clouds…”
• “Prepare yourself to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud. Be a blessing to somebody.”
• “The light is always there – yours to seek and to find.” – Oprah
• Understand that words are powerful.  “You must be careful about the words that you use or the words that you allow to be used in your house.  Words are things, you must be careful.  Careful about calling people out of their names. Using racial or sexual and all the ignorance…don’t do that.”
• “Find what you love…and don’t turn away from it.”

 Becoming who you are meant to be…

• If someone tells you that it is impossible….consider trying anyway. Why not?
• Hold nothing back when you teach…and look for the light bulb moment for your students and even for yourself.
• What Maya tells Oprah on being betrayed or hurt by people…“Baby, those people can’t hold a candle to the light that God already has shining on your face.  Don’t you know who you are?  You’re God’s child….”
• Always be aware that you are a child of God…and know that there is something greater than yourself…
• “The brute, the bigot and the batterer are all children of God….whether they know it or not.  And I’m supposed to treat them accordingly….and it’s hard….”
• Maya shares a quote from Terance – ““I am a human being. Nothing human can be alien to me.” If you can at least internalize a portion of that…you will never be able to say of a criminal act ,”I couldn’t do that,” because you have to say “I have all of the components…of a human being….I intend to use my energies constructively rather than destructively.  If you can do that about the negative…just think about what you can do about the positive.”
• “If a human being dares to be bigger than to the position in life that they were born….then so can you.”  STRETCH yourself to infinite possibilities.  You can be bigger too…you are a human being.

Love liberates

• “When you get, give.  When you learn, teach.” – lessons from Maya’s grandmother
• “Faith is the evidence of things not seen.”
•  “I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love, because love liberates.  It doesn’t just hold – that’s ego.  Love liberates.”
• “Love….will liberate and hold you up….even when you think you cannot stand.”
• “Love…will free you…to help you see the best you….and to be the best you.”
• “Love liberates….it doesn’t bind.  It says I love you no matter where you are. I would like to be near you ….but I love you.  Go….”

Just do right

• “If you teach…you have to live your teaching.  Do your best to live what you teach.”
• “Right will satisfy your soul….just do right.”  Try to be the best human being you can be.  Do it because it is right to do.
• People will know you….Will they be saying, “Oh damn….oh hell…” when they speak your name or will they be saying, “She’s so sweet.  She’s so nice. God bless her…”?  What kind of person do you want to be in this life?
• “Make life a better world….just where you are.  It is up to us.”

How will you be the master of your own life?…from today’s lesson from Maya Angelou, I have learned that I will listen to the teachers around me….so that I, too, can become a better teacher in this lifetime….and a better human being…