April
16 ,
2004
Rev.
Andrea Ayvazian's Newly Published Poem Touches Many
|
Photo:
Ellen Augarten
Andrea Ayvazian, MHC's dean of religious and spiritual
life and Protestant chaplain |
When Sojourners magazine chose to publish the Rev. Andrea Ayvazian's poem "The
Only Sermon," it was only the beginning. The 23-line poem
struck a chord with readers, who shared it by email, wove it
into sermons, incorporated it into holiday messages, and published
it on editorial pages.
"
I was excited when Sojourners magazine called and accepted
my poem the day they received it in the mail and hurried it into
publication in the issue that was almost at press at the time," Ayvazian,
dean of religious life at MHC, said. "But I was truly surprised
when a family in Lake Tahoe, California, wrote me an email, after
the poem was published, and asked if they could include copies
in all their Christmas cards. Then the publisher of a newspaper
in Washington State called and asked if they could use it as
an editorial on December 24, then an editor from a newspaper
in New Hampshire called with the same exact request. This was
stunning
to me!" Ayvazian has since received her own poem by email
four times.
Among those that have republished "The Only Sermon" are
The Accidental Activist, a Web site of actress Kathryn Blume;
the Jesus Our Shepherd Parish in Allenton, Wisconsin; the Unitarian
Universalist Congregation of Fort Wayne, Indiana; the Port
Townsend & Jefferson
County (Washington) Leader; the Mercer Island Peacemakers in
Mercer Island, Washington; Jonah House, a faith-based community
in Baltimore; and the Findlay Street Christian Church in Seattle,
Washington.
Ayvazian will read from her new chapbook,
Souls Floating By, April 28 at 7:30 pm at the Broadside
Bookshop in Northampton.
The Only Sermon
by Andrea Ayvazian
if we dug a huge grave miles wide, miles deep
and buried every rifle, pistol, knife, bullet, bomb, bayonet,
if we jumped upon fleets of tanks and fighter jets
with tool boxes, torches
unwelded them dismantled them turned them into scrap metal
if every light-skinned man in a silk tie said
to every dark-skinned man in a turban
I vow not to kill your children
and heard the same vow in return
if every elected leader agreed to stop lying
if every child was fed as well as racehorses bred to win
derbies
if every person with a second home gave it to a person
with no home
if every mother buried her parents not her sons and daughters
if every person who has enough said out loud I have enough
if every person violent in the name of God were to find
God
we would grow silent, still for a moment, a lifetime
we would hear infants nursing at the breast
hummingbirds hovering in flight
we would touch a canyon wall and feel the earth vibrate
we would hear two lovers sigh across the ocean
we would watch old wounds grow new flesh and jagged scars
disappear
as time was layered upon time would slowly be ready
to begin
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