Scripps Sunday #90- Ushuaia Edition

"What does the empty tomb mean to you?"

This was the question that they posed at Union today. Renee noted that “empty” often is a negative word--- empty room, empty pocket, empty wallet, etc. It points to the the lack of something. But Easter points to something wildly different. Empty reminds us that this is not the end of the story. Easter reminds us that God is not done with us and all the messy and broken parts of our stories. 

What are the messy things you need to bring to God and ask for grace because it feels like too much? Where do you need encouragement that God is not done with you or with that situation? Where do you need encouragement that this is not the end of the story?  

All the “isms”- racism, sexism, classism, imperialism, etc.--- all the ways we wound our lives, the lives of others, and the life of the world--- these do not have the final word. Easter reminds us that God’s mercy and grace have the last word. He is risen indeed!

I am so grateful you got to go to be a part of a community that was celebrating this tonight. 

You are seen. You are known. You are held. You are so very loved.

For this coming week, I offer you this brilliant poem from Wendell Berry. May you see it afresh in light of Easter and may you be on the lookout and practice resurrection.... 

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

 

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

 

“Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1973. Also published by Counterpoint Press in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1999; The Mad Farmer Poems, 2008; New Collected Poems, 2012.