Listening for the Winds of Change

Rev. Jeffrey Symynkywicz, January 19, 2003

Will the change come (when it comes),
inevitably, flowing like a river,
cascading over the face of the earth,
a raging torrent perhaps, battering down
the citadels of reaction?

Or will it be (if it is to be)
a gradual unfolding, an opening like a stream,
slowly, steadily, imperceptibly
making its way homeward
until one morning we awake and we are there?

We live history, every day,
but never know its course until it’s run.
The remaking that our world needs
will require all hands on deck.

The gentle and the strong, defiant and resilient,
must all find a place to stand and act and hold the line
if this world is to be made new.

There can be no turning back,
unless we would trade our civic soul
for easy baubles and trappings
of an age that is dying;
or unless we would luxuriate
in the dank and brackish waters
of a time already dead.

Our eyes face forward for a reason:
to greet the coming season, and try
to glimpse some portion of the future
before it’s here; then we’ll know
if not the total truth of what’s to come,
at least where to stand,
when the future’s winds of change begin to howl.

jbs
11/9/02 - 1/19/03

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