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Holy Week resources and reflections

Before Last Wednesday

Before last Wednesday
We were like ancient Babylonians
Huddled together building our babel towers

And we all spoke one language
Work, make, produce!
I never knew my neighbor’s name

Then God came down and saw the mess we made
So East of Eden we can’t remember it
“If they keep building, they’ll get everything they want.”

Now the air has gone viral with invisible fire
Dust to dust goes my ambitious American dream
The Palms will burn early this year

Do you remember the clanging symbols of the internet wars?
I hated you and we had never met
But last night we both were afraid and cried in our lover’s arms.

My body has become a bearer of cross-shaped questions
Oh my God,
How, where, why, when?

But all I find is a chasm, a silence
Where lonely Job has the only reply
“Welcome to the ash heap, my friends”

So cacophonous is the spreading sound
Of this pandemic pandemonium
Yet louder is God’s awe as the dogwoods bloom

JOSHUA MUSSER GRITTER co-pastors First Presbyterian Church in Salisbury, North Carolina, with his wife Lara. They watch movies together with their dog Red.

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