Eastern Mennonite University - Shenandoah Yearbook (Harrisonburg, VA)

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10 Opening

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Ps P| 1a Self 7] Sigg —“—— i : i Be Opening 9

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The Burning Church We followed the old man’s crooked finger to the church on the bald hill. As we went he muttered names of fathers and great-aunts carved into the yellow pine pulpit. Walls stood parched and naked amid the charred pews. Blackened remnants of beams made feeble stabs benath the sky’s blue vault. Yet the windows studied our approach; Their arched gaze spilling light as our feet shuffled piles of ashes. The broken edges of their giass shaped a laugh that echoed the flames’ lick. Birds perched on the cutting lips, reviving choruses once mingled with the somber light that seeped through the olive colored drapes. The walls of this congregation were built without windows, Word carefully stacked upon word until the light within grew stale and the breath of bodies folded in prayer turned cold. One night the church burned, An altar consumed without sacrifice. The people ran down the hill, leaving the bricks to stand like a raging prophet, eyes stretched by his vision, mouth gaping towards heaven crying: Let us build our walls with windows. — Randy Seitz Opening 11