By the Rev. Jon Rieley-Goddard

Dear friends,

    A favorite poem from long ago, remembered something like this:

    When your face appeared above my crumpled life,
    At first I understood only the poverty of what I had;
    But then your face marked for me
    the beginning of the colored world
    in which I had not yet had my beginning.

    There was a stanza about the beauty of this new colored world, and this:

    Love’s slip-shod watchman, fear hems me in.
    I am so afraid of losing this, of the colors fading,
    When your sun sets.

    Why not quote the poem, and be done with it, you might well ask.
Copyright, first. And the accuracy of memory over precision, second.

***

    A Russian, in the Cold War years of my youth, wrote the poem and a Westerner translated it, introducing the first level of interpretation – nay, the second, since words themselves are but pale reminders of the emotions and concepts that words can only point to.

    His name was Yevgeny Yevteskenko, the poet. I don’t remember the translator’s name, though the poem as I remember it certainly bears his stamp as much as the poet’s.

    And why this poem, remembered in part, fractured in its telling, and aimed but vaguely in the direction of my intended theme?

    As Jesus would say, Have I been with you all this time, and you still don’t know me?

***

    Teasing aside, I mean to write about a matter of surpassing importance, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, remembered, though fractured by time, chance, longing, and dread, each year as spring, at least here in western New York, announces itself with the receding of snow to reveal my garlic shoots, already green and bursting with flavor, aroma, and purpose.

    In all seasons, we affirm the Church as we know it, understand it, and recollect it, from its sundered, post-Modern pieces, each week, working with those who show up, to witness to a reality that has much more to give than to receive and more beauty than any half-forgotten/remembered poem of the Cold War era and the timeless wastes of the landscape of love, secular and divine, mundane and sacred. In spring, our weekly acts of re-membering Church take on a greater joy fitting for the high time of Easter.

    When your face first appeared over my crumpled life, for me, recalls not only love of persons but more, love of God, the One who mends the broken heart right there on the battlefield of earthly love and longing.

    At first I understood only the poverty of what I had, for me, recalls the times of despair and dark terror of one with not only a broken heart, but a smashed spirit, as well. What the wonders of earthly love had not touched, violated, or devalued, the darkness of the night of longing and disappointment had all but finished off. With the shred of self-love that remained, God began to continue the work that God had started. The pure, focused black of opposition that had degraded to the gray of depression and anxiety began to take on hues and tones that I had remembered but could no longer see -- the beginning of the colored world in which I had not yet had my beginning.

    Brought back by love, whom love in other guises, looking more like hate, had all but destroyed.

    As color fought with color, pastels doing battle with mud hues and filth, hope reared its lovely head, back from a place that we would not, and could not, talk about. Where once I had been eager for contact of the earthy sort, I embraced the monk’s life of inward parts, content to grow in love of God, in hope of an earthly reward of the fair and lovely sort, in time. No longer just my time, but my time shared, as I was able, with God.

    Love’s slip-shod watchman, fear hems me in.
    I am so afraid of losing this, of the colors fading,
    When your sun sets.

    One who has been lost, and found again, by God and in the fullness of time, by other persons slowly allowed to come once more closer, has strength in the broken places, certainly, but also great fear in the same places. The balancing act of hope and despair on one level requires constant attention, and at the same time requires verve and joy and folly, and the senseless joy of a child on a see-saw, a loving Parent at the other end of the pivoting beam – teaching through laughter the lessons of life, the sudden drop and the saving at the last.

***

    We’ve been talking about the resurrection, the longed for and little understood but deeply felt experience of seeing with eyes thought blind, of feeling with feelers singed by circumstance, and a spirit as stable as spirit can be, which is not to say much. A body, then, solid and strong, bearing scars certainly, and showing in the eyes the amused sadness of those for whom joy was, is, and will be, God willing.

    Beyond the glow of God’s love just below the horizon, at break of day, walks One who knew the joy and pain of earthly love, the agony of hatred driven into his palms, the searing fire and wild recklessness of the Father’s sure healing, and the giddy amazement of friend and foe alike, saying, Live you, brother?

***

    Figuring backward from your own sorrow and joy, see him,
    walking toward you, palms up – largely intact –
    and face aglow, with love, for you, and you alone
    ... and for all whom you are connected to, friend or foe,
    it doesn’t matter to this smiling one – the face that never sets.