Did you know before you left
where you were going?
Was there some inkling, some
whisper in your spirit
as you were traveling home
or that day as you pushed your body
to take in oxygen and build strength,
that this would happen?
We didn’t. We had no idea
you were on a longer journey
and would not have believed
even if you had told us beforehand.
Now we remember in heaps what
you said, what you did, where we were,
who was with us. It comes back now.
You who were so far ahead of us
that you had to compete with horses,
having won the race with foot-runners,
Jeremiah must be proud of you.
Did you know lavender was your color,
a royal touch to your power of speech,
your credentials in the sisterhood
of robe and stole? You, the bright light
brilliant mind, savvy soul, wise one
teacher, writer, dancer, mother, wife,
preacher . . . yes, oh could you preach!
You called us fresh from Genesis to prophets
to the Leader-Friend-Guide, always
bearing your own cross, whichever one it
happened at the time to be. And now you
see the storied ones face to face
through the bright glare,
dancing, probing, exegeting
their truths from that new angle. Did you
discover you came close to the real Story
the way you told it with incisive courage,
or do you know yet? Does the truth
come through slowly as you keep going
always seeing more than we were able?
Most of all, I have to wonder
if you knew then, in your child-self,
your call to proclaim, to gather
us into community, that time
in the pre-school, three-year-old
world you inhabited when you
announced that you had something
to say to the gathered crowd.
You made your way to the front,
hesitating only for a moment as if
seeking the best way to respond
to your classmate’s song in Spanish,
the one about Jesus. Then in the way
we always saw you, in charge, you
opened wide your arms, invited all
present to join in the song, making
it all understandable, and as one voice
everyone sang, “Jesus loves me,
this I know.” We know it too.
– Jean Rodenbough
Feb. 14, 2008
