My friend and colleague Erin Gilmore recently shared the poem below in the context of the UCC Ignite Leadership Initiative that we are cohosting with others. It’s a doozy. I love the threads of letting go and moving to the new. Bozarth-Campbell was one of the first women to be ordained priest in the Episcopal Church. Enjoy this one. Fully.
Passover Remembered, by Alla Bozarth-Campbell
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
justice 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
the 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 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 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 loves
and misunderstood by those
who have known you since birth
and feel abandoned by you.
Some will find new friendships
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.
Continue to call each other
by the names I’ve given you,
to help remember who you are.
You will get where you are going
by remembering who you are.
Touch each other and keep telling the 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.