Passover Remembered

Here is a poem by Alla Bozarth-Campbell that was read a lot during YAV orientation. It has been on my mind lately and in the season of Easter, I thought I might share it with you. Its an amazing poem that I find applies to my year.


Passover Remembered

Pack nothing.

Bring only your determination to serve
and your willingness to be free.
Don't wait for the bread to rise.
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 the time–to love tenderly, act justly and walk humbly with your God. 

Do not take time to explain to the neighbors.
Tell only a few trusted friends and family members.
Then 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.

You will learn to eat new food and find refuge in new places.
I will give you dreams in the desert to guide you safely home
to that place you have not yet seen.
The stories you tell one another around the fires in the dark will make you strong and wise.

Outsiders will attack you, and some will follow you,
and at times you will get weary and turn on each other
from fear and fatigue and blind forgetfulness.
You have been preparing for this for hundreds of years.
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 love
and misunderstood by those who have known you since birth
and feel abandoned by you.
Some will find new friendships and unlikely faces,
and old friends as faithful and true as a pillar of God's flame.

Sing songs as you go, and hold close together.
You may at times grow confused and lose your way.
Continue to call each other by the names I've given you,
to help remember who you are.
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 the 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 Bozarth-Campbell