Thirty Years Later
Once again I say that with death Jesus conquered death, and rose from the grave a spirit and a power. And He walked in our solitude and visited the gardens of our passion.
He lies not there in that cleft rock behind the stone.
We who love Him beheld Him with these our eyes which He made to see; and we touched Him with these our hands which He taught to reach forth.
I know you who believe not in Him. I was one of you, and you are many; but your number shall be diminished.
Must your break your harp and your lyre to find the music therein?
Or must you fell a tree ere you can believe it bears fruit?
You hate Jesus because someone from the North Country said He was the Son of God. But you hate one another because each of you deems himself too great to be the brother of the next man.
You hate Him because someone said He was born of a virgin, and not of man’s seed.
But you know not the mothers who go to the tomb in virginity, nor the men who go down to the grave choked with their own thirst.
You know not that the earth was given in marriage to the sun, and that earth it is who sends us forth to the mountain and the desert.