Dear Friends,
As Passover is upon us and Easter is near, this is a special time for millions of Jews and Christians around the world. Tragically, this holy week started off with a shooting rampage at a Jewish community center in Kansas that left two adults and one teen dead. It has all the indications of an anti-Semitic hate crime, and it’s a painful reminder that the long journey to end oppression in our world also remains an urgent one.
And as is sometimes true of urgent journeys, we may need to drop everything that might cause us delay. Traveling lightly and rapidly, in fact, may be the only way to freedom.
This was certainly the case for the ancient Israelites. The Hebrew exodus narrative tells us that when the Jewish people decided to follow Moses out of Egypt, they had to leave in such a hurry that they couldn’t even wait for their bread to rise. In the words of poet Alla Reneé Bozarth, they had to “pack nothing and begin quickly” if they were to escape once and for all the horrors of slavery and open a new chapter of faith and freedom in their lives.
Bozarth writes of the Passover:
Pack nothing. Bring only your determination to serve and
your willingness to be free. Do not hesitate to leave your old
ways behind – fear, silence, submission. Only surrender to the
need of time – to love and walk humbly with your God . . .
Begin quickly, before you have time to sink back into old
slavery. Set out in the dark . . . Sing songs as you go. You may
at times grow confused and lose your way . . . Touch each
other and keep telling the stories . . .[1]
Her poem reminds me that the work of justice and recovering wholeness often means interrupting the ways I usually think (such as “I couldn’t possibly make time to do such and such”) and seizing opportunities that present themselves before I become captive to my old ways of acting.
As we gather together with family and friends this week and at Northwest this Sunday . . . and as we hear the old stories of freedom and new life, I’m hopeful that the well-being we want in our lives and in the world is possible. I believe it will begin as soon as I’m willing to leave behind anything that stands in my way . . . and get on my way.
Warmly,
Terry
[1] #632 “Passover Remembered” Singing the Living Tradition (Beacon Press, Boston: 1993).