Pack nothing. Bring only your determination to serve and your willingness to be free. Don't wait for the bread to ride. Take nourishment for the journey, but eat standing, be ready to move at a moment's notice.
Do not hesitate to leave your old ways behind - fear, silence, submission. Only surrender to the need of te time - to love justice and walk humbly with your God.
Begin quickly, before you have time to sink back into old slavery. Set out in the dark. I will send fire to warm and encourage you. I will be with you in the fire and I will be with you in the cloud.
I will give you dreams in the desert to guide you safely home to that place you have not yet seen...I am sending you into the wilderness to make a new way and to learn my ways more deeply.
Some of you will be so changed by weathers and wanderings that even your closest friends will have to learn your features as though for the first time. Some of you will not change at all.
Some will be abandoned by your dearest loves and misunderstood by those who have known you since birth and feel abandoned by you. Some will find new friendship in unlikely faces, and old friends as faithful, and true as the pillar of God's flame. Sing songs as you go, and hold close together. You may at times grow confused and lose your way...touch each other and keep telling stories...make maps as you go, remembering the way back from before you were born...
So you will be only the first of many waves of deliverance on these desert seas.
It is the first of many beginnings - your Paschaltide.
Remain true to this mystery.
Pass on the whole story...do not go back. I am with you now and I am waiting for you.
- Alla Renee Bozarth
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3 comments:
Dear Emily,
I am deeply for grateful for your ministry in Tanzania as a Jesuit Volunteer! Thank you for honoring my poem, "Passover Remembered," from my books: WOMANPRIEST:A PERSONAL ODYSSEY, STARS IN YOUR BONES:SIGNPOSTS ON OUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEYS, ACCIDENTAL WISDOM, THIS IS MY BODY:PRAYING FOR EARTH, PRAYERS FROM THE HEART~ and from the audiotape, WATER WOMEN, all by Alla Renée Bozarth. I am deeply for grateful for your ministry in Tanzania as a Jesuit Volunteer! And I give you retroactive permission to publish "Passover Remembered" on your blog under the incorrect title, "Paschaltide," providing that you replace the current unproofed and mistake-laden version with the correct version. Please contact me at: allabearheart@yahoo.com if my effort to include the poem here doesn't work. (It doesn't!)For your readers, the first error is the title, the next is "don't wait for the bread to ride" which should be "bread to rise," and so on. Much has been left out without any ellipsis to indicate that lines are missing. If you want to use only portions of the poem, you may, but please type an ellipsis (. . .) at the end of the section quoted to show that it's an excerpt followed by missing sections. Here is the accurate version of "Passover Remembered" with my loving blessings on you, your work and your readers!
Alla Renée Bozarth
Dear Emily,
I am deeply for grateful for your ministry in Tanzania as a Jesuit Volunteer! Thank you for honoring my poem, "Passover Remembered," from my books: WOMANPRIEST:A PERSONAL ODYSSEY, STARS IN YOUR BONES:SIGNPOSTS ON OUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEYS, ACCIDENTAL WISDOM, THIS IS MY BODY:PRAYING FOR EARTH, PRAYERS FROM THE HEART~ and from the audiotape, WATER WOMEN, all by Alla Renée Bozarth. And I give you retroactive permission to publish "Passover Remembered" on your blog, currently under the incorrect title, "Paschaltide," providing that you replace the current unproofed and mistake-laden version with the correct version. Please contact me at: allabearheart@yahoo.com if my effort to include the poem here doesn't work. (It doesn't!)For your readers, the first error is the title, the next is "don't wait for the bread to ride" which should be "bread to rise," and so on. Much has been left out without any ellipsis to indicate that lines are missing. If you want to use only portions of the poem, you may, but please type an ellipsis (. . .) at the end of the section quoted to show that it's an excerpt followed by missing sections. Please contact me and know that I'll be glad to email you the accurate form of "Passover Remembered" with my loving blessings on you, your work and your readers!
Alla Renée Bozarth
So sorry for the repetition. In order to sign in I had to open a Google account and once done, my Preview message was sent to you without giving me a chance to correct it, which I didn't realize until I HAD corrected it and approved that it be published! The first version has mistakes because I thought I'd be able to include the poem, which proved too long for blog comments. Computers don't help sometimes when we are trying hard to do things accurately!At least I got to thank you three times for being a Jesuit Volunteer! Thanks again, Emily~~ Alla
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