Thursday, March 19, 2015

Blog Post #2 Jordan Darling (Poland 2015)

Saint Maximilian Kolbe

For #16670

From the crux of this wave,
   I lounge like a martyr.
Will this remembrance fade?
   or am I more like my Father?
The stakes cause me no pain,
   compared to the faces.
Where all the hope just drained
   have their lives
     truly been impacted…


I'm a lighthouse's gaze
   fixed beyond horizons.
I am always the same,
   constantly changing. 
And so Death licked my ear,
    no more tears on my eyelids.
Waiting patiently here,
   in this darkness of panic,
      not a soul was buzzing.


I pray for the rain,
   to wash this blood from their bold hands.
Because I still love them the same,
   as long lost brothers.
Then my Father he came,
   embraced by my beloved.
Lost in the way,
   that things become each other,
      OH, that unitive oneness. 


So the last I shall say,
   this cross cannot hold me.
There is a force in the way
   constraints can be freeing. 
Be released of the sin
   you thought that defined you,
I raise my left arm,
   and wait for the ending,
      no it's the beginning. 

     I chose to write about Saint Maximilian Kolbe because his story particularly resonated with me. To think about the number of "Christians" whom in the face of the Shoah either were complacent or active participants in the genocide of the Jewish people, Saint Maximilian engaged in the deepest Christian act imaginable, the selfless sacrifice of his life for that of not only another prisoner, but that prisoner's family. It is a reminder that even in the face of such malevolence that there were actions committed recognized, and unrecognized that truly embodied selfless love and action. For every story of heroism we are able to pluck from the Shoah there are surely thousands more in which attempts of righteousness were immediately snuffed out. The only way for me  to retain any reasonable level of sanity and optimism in such a challenging emotional, physical, and academic topic is to search deeply for these jewels of humanity amongst the barren wasteland of inhumanity. I now proceed through my life carrying the knowledge and burden of Saint Maximilian, as we all should. 

    Would I bare such a Christly burden as he did? Would I make a sacrifice with no reassurance of my memorialization or success, and more importantly would I do so for he who has been manipulated into begin subhuman? It is not an easy question, nor is any question in connection to the Shoah, but how can one love God, if he doesn't love his fellow man regardless of perceived barriers and otherness? 

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