As Long as I'm Quoting People......

I've run across this prose poem a handful of times this year, and it still gives me pause. Marianne Williamson (who is okay) wrote it, and Nelson Mandela (who, of course, rocks) quoted it just before he first took office.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us;
it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

If I'm going to be unoriginal, I might as well do it richly, right? (I saw this quote, aptly abbreviated, in Akeela and the Bee this evening.....we have free Sh*wtime this week on cable...I'm not sure if I'll sleep at all, but it is fun to watch movies!...fun, because it's free.) Here's the Akeela version, for those among you who prefer it distilled.....


Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.

I like this efficient version. I like to read it aloud. I like, then, to imagine that I could write something inspiring too....something that might also one day hang on Lawrence Fishburn's wall.