Pentecost

Seamus Heaney’s contemporary translation of an ancient Greek drama, quoted below, was written specifically as a comment on the conflict in Northern Ireland. Since then, it has been used as a comment on 9/11, the tsunami and it is indeed an appropriate comment on this week’s disaster in Burma. It is a message of hope for all of us, especially when things go wrong in our lives and in the world. God will surprise us with opportunities. ‘To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good’
(I Cor 12:7).

From The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes

History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle-self-healing
The utter self-revealing
Double take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Of lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
Seamus Heaney