What is it
to be Catholic,
Slovak,
and Democratic
in a world of change?
What is it
to be a peasant,
a farmer,
a coal miner
committed in perpetuity
to creating, liberating and transforming
within one’s own ethnic space?
When-
abruptly gone
are the farms,
the coal mines
and the common language of ethnic folk
unifying the clan?
Cities beckoned
with their multi-ethnic schools
and diverse work places
daring the folks
to learn new languages
of ethnicity, of worship, of ideology.
Grieving
the loss of tradition
and their easy speak,
they gasped
at how conflicting languages
antagonized and divided the clans,
long sustained by common roots.
Enter a Pentecost of imagination!
moving gently along the divided way,
extending hospitality
to awkward contradictory positions.
Imagination is always loyal
to the deep unity of everything.
Imagination unleashes creativity
that liberates and transforms,
‘uploading’ new languages
of diversity, liberalness,
latitude and tolerance
seldom probed in our peasant past.
Like the first Pentecost
a new language of each other
bursts our ethnic space
into global flames of love and respect.
To fully grasp this new world arena
is to venture more deeply into the heart of God.
