Savior

My friend Richard sent me a Maya Angelou poem that is not one I had seen before. The title of the poem is Savior. The poem is in two parts: the first (and longer) part is a lament of what we have done to Christ and his sacrifice. The second is a plea for Christ to be with us. The poem reads:

Petulant priests, greedy
centurions, and one million
incensed gestures stand
between your love and me.

Your agape sacrifice
is reduced to colored glass,
vapid penance, and the
tedium of ritual.

Your footprints yet
mark the crest of
billowing seas but
your joy
fades upon the tablets
of ordained prophets.

Visit us again, Savior.
Your children, burdened with
disbelief, blinded by a patina
of wisdom,
carom down this vale of
fear. We cry for you
although we have lost
your name.

Richard sent me the poem with a note commenting on people’s different interpretation of poetry. For some, this is a poem that taps into their cynicism and anger; they find in it an explanation for their turning away from the Church. In contrast, his reading, focuses more on the second part, hearing in it (to use Richard’s words) “a universal hunger/longing for the Holy – sort of the ‘hearts burning’ experience of the Emmaus story.”

I share the latter reaction to the poem. Yes, there is indictment – not just of the Church, but of all the ways we have distorted Christ’s message over the years and turned it into something that on occasion bears only a vague resemblance to anything that can be called “The Good News.” But it also suggests the depth of our longing for God, something of the restlessness of our hearts that (as Augustine recognized) can be satisfied only by God.

And so we say from the depths of our hearts, “Visit us again, Savior…We cry for you.”