Last night I had the privilege to recite this poem at our Good Friday service. The emotions are still raw. I can’t sleep or settle. So I am writing.

The poem was written in 1974 by a prisoner in a concentration camp, Chacabuco, in Chile.  First, while looking at art history images at work, I found the sculpture by Guido Rocha. It blew me away. The sort of thing nightmares are made of. I shared it with my pastor who loaned me a book that had the image paired with the poem. I read the poem. It was all over in a moment. I knew I had to share it.

I have spent the last six months learning the lines, having the words settle in my being, and researching the time and place the poem was written. There is even a bit of footage available on the web of the camp. Gradually, I was seeing both places(Chacbuco and Jerusalem) in my mind as I recited.

And last night it all  coalesced and took over. I had attended the Maundy Thursday service. Friday, I was confident and nervous. I forgot to walk (it helps with the adrenaline)! The service, Tenebrae, is moving, evocative. It is slow and contemplative. And my nerves grew. I went up, and felt like I exploded. I placed my hand on the cross, emptied my mind,  and began. The words flowed out of my mouth. I was swept away by them. Suddenly I was a prisoner crying out for understanding. (also, my left leg started shaking like a tree branch in a thunderstorm! A tiny part of my brain was aware of it, but the rest of my brain was occupied at the moment and abandoned my leg to its shaking while I got on with things!)

I imagine this is what actors live for. When you become the part and submit to it. The cross became my conduit to Christ and the passion. Suddenly, when I said “one who struggles, dies, and loves”, I was there. At the walk and crucifixion, under a dark sky, the air filled with cries of agony and harsh yells of hate, the whips slicing the air and flesh. I could feel in my hand, a connection through the wood. The past was present, in that blinding moment it was real. And, wonderingly, I felt the impossible love. An incredible concentration of emotions. I was in places people living in poverty call ‘home’. I could see and hear others crying out ‘Lord Lord’ but doing nothing to help. When the prisoner said “I desire emancipation for myself and brother” I was standing in the blistering heat of the sun, naked with my fellow prisoners, for hours enduring the abuse of the camp leaders. As Christ endured the spitting, the beating, the humiliation, the prisoners endured the same. And I was me, bearing my own crosses, there have been many. And in a terrible few moments, aware (as much as I could be) of the pain of everyone, in all times.

I have never had that happen before. I am grateful I experienced it. I am changed. I thank my Chacabuco prisoner for writing his story. So I could tell it to others. So we will remember.

 

sculpture:

The Tortured Christ

Guido Rocha (1975)