Excerpt from Threatened With Resurrection
…There is something here within us
Which doesn’t let us sleep, which
doesn’t let us rest,
Which doesn’t stop pounding deep
inside,
It is the silent, warm weeping of
Indian women without their husbands,
It is the sad gaze of the children
Fixed there beyond memory,
In the very pupil of our eyes
Which during sleep, though closed,
keep watch
With each contraction of the heart
In every wakening…
What keeps us from sleeping,
Is that they have threatened us with
resurrection!
Because at each nightfall,
Though exhausted from the endless
inventory
Of killings since 1954,
Yet we continue to love life,
And do not accept their death!
…Because in this marathon of Hope,
there are always others to relieve
us
in bearing the courage necessary
to arrive at the goal which lies
beyond death…
Accompany us then on this vigil
And you will know what it is to
dream!
You will then know how marvelous it
is
To live threatened with
resurrection!
To dream awake,
To keep watch asleep
To live while dying
And to already know oneself
resurrected!
(by Julia Esquivel, Guatemalan poet
and theologian, from her book, Threatened With Resurrection: Prayers and Poems
from an Exiled Guatemalan, Brethren Press, 2nd Edition, published 1994.
Find it Here.)
What is it about Easter? Easter draws wayward and devoted
Christians to church like no other.
My mother used to call them C & E’s – The Christmas and Easters,
people who generally never attended church and probably had no intention of
attending church on a regular basis, but always showed up for Christmas and
Easter. And Easter more.
I was thinking about that while I sat
in Church this morning. Thinking
about what it is that calls to people to go to church on Easter. Is it tradition? Happy memories from childhood? A longing? A spiritual need to be connected to others? Obligation? Guilt? I’m sure
I’ve gone for all of those reasons.
SP and I went this morning because it
felt like the right thing to do.
And because lately I always feel better leaving church than I did when I
arrived. And because I too have been
feeling that incredible longing to be connected to something bigger than myself
again. And also because I think
the right church empowers you with desire, activism and Hope.
Hope is a funny thing. It can trick you into doing scary
things. It can give you a push
when you think all is lost. It can
hurt and brighten and persuade.
The historical details of the Easter
story are fuzzy. And as the
Reverend said today at church – agreeing on those details isn’t what matters in
this story. In fact he suggested
disagreeing, and understanding the story in our own way is what makes life
interesting, is what forces us to think and grow and move and change. Don’t get caught up in the
details.
For me, the story – and the ultimate
connector – is Hope. Hope is what
draws people to church. It is the
piece of our humanity that draws us all together. It is the spirit inside of us that moves us. And what I was reminded of today in the
Easter story is that Jesus was a man of Hope. He was so incredibly hopeful that we as humanity could
change for the better that he did unimaginable things. That Hope empowered Him with the
courage to start a revolution of love.
Can you imagine that? He
hoped so hard in our abilities to love one another and care for one another and
be better than we knew ourselves to be that He created a radical revolution of
kindness. I don’t care what
religion you are – radical kindness and revolutionary love sounds pretty
amazing to me.
My truth tells me that we humans, we
are better than this day to day nonsense that we bicker about. My truth tells me that we are still
capable of revolutionary love. And
that we have the ability to change our world. We are bigger than our little bodies. And in this “marathon of Hope,” our
lives are much bigger than we ever dreamed of.
To me to be threatened with resurrection is
to be threatened with the possibilities, to be threatened with change. To recognize that our Hopes can be
realized – but we must be empowered to make those changes. I have to allow myself to recognize
that there is a different way to live, different from the hardness this world imposes. I too can be part of revolutionary love…of
radical kindness.
Happy Easter to those who
celebrate. And Happy Hoping to
all!
