They Have Threatened Us With Resurrection...
It isn’t the noise in the streets
that keeps us from resting, my friend,
nor is it the shouts of the young people
coming out drunk from “St. Paul’s” bar,
nor is it the tumult of those who pass by excitedly
on their way to the mountains.
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…
What keeps us from sleeping
is that they have threatened us with Resurrection!
…They have threatened us with Resurrection
because we have felt their inert bodies
and their souls penetrated ours
doubly fortified.
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…
…They have threatened us with Resurrection…
Because they live
today, tomorrow and always
on the streets, baptized with their blood
and in the air which gathered up their cry,
in the jungle that hid their shadows,
in the river that gathered up their laughter,
in the ocean that holds their secrets,
in the craters of the volcanoes,
Pyramids of the New Day,
which swallowed up their ashes.
They have threatened us with Resurrection,
because they are more alive than ever before,
because they transform our agonies,
and fertilize our struggle,
because they pick us up when we fall,
and gird us like giants…
That is the whirlwind
which does not let us sleep,
the reason why asleep, we keep watch,
and awake, we dream…
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 by Resurrection!
To dream awake,
to keep watch asleep,
to live while dying
and to already know oneself
resurrected!
-Julia Esquivel
Esquivel was an elementary school teacher, a native of Guatemala, driven into exile by the fascist government. This poem is one of a collection under the title “They Have Threatened Us with Resurrection” which speaks with a ferocious hope that defies the agony of 100,000 citizens who have been murdered since the CIA helped to overthrow an elected government in Guatemala in 1954. What we read today is adapted from her long and complex title poem, and it has been rendered for a more general application than the political/theological one of its original context. As Parker Palmer has noted, the “they” in this poem are sometimes the killers and sometimes the murdered. We fear them both: the killers because they test our convictions about resurrection, and the victims because they call us to follow them into “this marathon of Hope.” Esquivel’s poetic and startling turn of promise into threat is an opportunity for us to hear something new this Easter.
With thanks to Cameron Miller, Buffalo, NY, US ... http://trinitybuffalo.org/2007/04/easter-day-2007.html
that keeps us from resting, my friend,
nor is it the shouts of the young people
coming out drunk from “St. Paul’s” bar,
nor is it the tumult of those who pass by excitedly
on their way to the mountains.
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…
What keeps us from sleeping
is that they have threatened us with Resurrection!
…They have threatened us with Resurrection
because we have felt their inert bodies
and their souls penetrated ours
doubly fortified.
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…
…They have threatened us with Resurrection…
Because they live
today, tomorrow and always
on the streets, baptized with their blood
and in the air which gathered up their cry,
in the jungle that hid their shadows,
in the river that gathered up their laughter,
in the ocean that holds their secrets,
in the craters of the volcanoes,
Pyramids of the New Day,
which swallowed up their ashes.
They have threatened us with Resurrection,
because they are more alive than ever before,
because they transform our agonies,
and fertilize our struggle,
because they pick us up when we fall,
and gird us like giants…
That is the whirlwind
which does not let us sleep,
the reason why asleep, we keep watch,
and awake, we dream…
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 by Resurrection!
To dream awake,
to keep watch asleep,
to live while dying
and to already know oneself
resurrected!
-Julia Esquivel
Esquivel was an elementary school teacher, a native of Guatemala, driven into exile by the fascist government. This poem is one of a collection under the title “They Have Threatened Us with Resurrection” which speaks with a ferocious hope that defies the agony of 100,000 citizens who have been murdered since the CIA helped to overthrow an elected government in Guatemala in 1954. What we read today is adapted from her long and complex title poem, and it has been rendered for a more general application than the political/theological one of its original context. As Parker Palmer has noted, the “they” in this poem are sometimes the killers and sometimes the murdered. We fear them both: the killers because they test our convictions about resurrection, and the victims because they call us to follow them into “this marathon of Hope.” Esquivel’s poetic and startling turn of promise into threat is an opportunity for us to hear something new this Easter.
With thanks to Cameron Miller, Buffalo, NY, US ... http://trinitybuffalo.org/2007/04/easter-day-2007.html