Meditation for Good Friday, 2007

delivered at Grace Church, Amherst

by the Rev'd H. Burton Whiteside

When Hope is Murdered

When hope is murdered

the vision ceases

the tree goes limp

the green spirit fades

to nothing.

When love is slain

the blood

 once warm and flowing

stops cold

in the body

of the cherished. 

The pain of a heart withering!

When faith dies

the earth, once sure,

shakes.

No one can stand.

The mother cries

for the child,

the child

for the mother.

And grief

weighs like a stone

upon the chest

squashing the breath.

And all fall down

rudely

upon the ground

that does not hold.

All fall down

corpse upon corpse

of family

and of stranger

without reason or purpose

as darkness

slides open

without feeling

and all are swallowed

into unknowing

and left forever

dead.

And there

is Fear

nervously pacing

plotting

waiting

for his unjust inauguration.

His time has come

he thinks

to seize a throne

of gold and steel

and to usher in

with broken words

an endless war

of spite

as all lie dead

in mass graves

of  apathy.

Is there no one left

who can suffer well

and in so doing

revive us

for that noble way

of Life? 

Is there no one 

who thirsts convincingly

for the water of justice?

Is there no one 

able to receive well

this taste of bitter existence?

Is there no one left

who can when pierced by cruelties

bleed well and true?

Are we all now

so stiff and dry

wrapped tightly

like so many mummies

entombed

with their possessions?

Is there no one

in whose being resides

the reconstituting

water of simplicity?

Is there no one

who possesses such a steadfast heart

of compassion

that he would willingly be

mocked and scourged

to expose

once and for all

the total inanity of violence,

     coercion and torture

           as they pose

as credible strategies toward a true world community?

My God.....  There is....... 

There is this one today..... 

Something strange stirs within.....

Is there some movement in this grave? 

Could there be hope again,

love again, 

faith again

          through this one’s way

                  of living and dying?

I cannot yet tell fully what this moving desolation means.