Las Ofrendas: Breath, Wind, Spirit

The response at St. Paul's to building our ofrendas is huge. We now have two ofrendas in the nave, and one more upstairs in the hallway outside in the children's Godly Play classrooms. I am very moved every time I walk by the ofrendas, and I go upstairs a few times a day to look and meditate. What amazing gifts!

Bishop Shannon Johnston came by last week. He said he had never seen an ofrenda to the dead, and the bishop expressed how touched he was by seeing ours. To all who have contributed to the ofrendas, thank you, and please know how blessed we are by your offering of love to those who we see no longer but who are just beyond our horizon.

I leave you today with a few photos of our ofrendas, and with a fitting poem by Birago Ishmael Diop (1906-1989), a native of Dakar, Senegal, who is a much noted African poet and folklorist of the last century. The original of this poem is in French, and I have come across quite a few translations. I like this one best. By the way, the title can be translated either as "Breaths" or "Spirits," which is the same word-play used in the Gospel of John 3:5 and throughout Paul's letters (for example, Romans 8:9) whereby the Greek word pneuma means breath, wind, and spirit. The Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) have similar word-plays. Here's the poem:

Breaths
By Birago Diop

Listen more often to things rather than beings.
Hear the fire's voice,
Hear the voice of water.
In the wind hear the sobbing of the trees,
It is our forefathers breathing.
The dead are not gone forever.
They are in the paling shadows,
And in the darkening shadows.
The dead are not beneath the ground,
They are in the rustling tree,
In the murmuring wood,
In the flowing water,
In the still water,
In the lonely place, in the crowd:
The dead are not dead.

Listen more often to things rather than beings.
Hear the fire's voice,
Hear the voice of water.
In the wind hear the sobbing of the trees.
It is the breathing of our forefathers,
Who are not gone, not beneath the ground,
Not dead.

The dead are not gone for ever.
They are in a woman's breast,
A child's crying, a glowing ember.
The dead are not beneath the earth,
They are in the flickering fire,
In the weeping plant, the groaning rock,
The wooded place, the home.
The dead are not dead.

Listen more often to things rather than beings.
Hear the fire's voice,
Hear the voice of water.
In the wind hear the sobbing of the trees.
It is the breathing of our forefathers.