Still Here!

Still Here

I been scarred and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
   Snow has friz me,
   Sun has baked me,

Looks like between 'em they done
   Tried to make me

Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
   But I don't care!
   I'm still here!

Langston Hughes. 

This poem is, say commentators, a reflection on how the struggle for justice, the struggle even to live, is exhausting - so much so that considerations such as grammar and 'right speech' are discarded by Hughes, an eloquent speaker and writer. But, says the poem, despite the exhaustion, despite the hate thrown at him, he remains, defiant, strong, courageous. 

Scripture

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.              2 Corinthians 4.7-10