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Passover Michael Minkoj]; Jr.

I think it makes sense mint jelly goes with lamb-it means the Passover meal had the 9lean taste of forgiveness. Now the Preacher breaks the bread and takes the wine in his hand. It took me years to believe; still I barely understand-how Christ makes an appearance. Some things are hard to forget, some to renlember.

In the Passover, God promised not to remember the sins of any man who painted the blood of a lamb on his doorposts. The Angel of Death, in the appearance of a black cloud, passed over that house whose forgiveness, freely offered.to anyone who would believe, gleamed in the night the color of red wine.

And now the Preacher again takes the bread and the wine and has us all eat and drink, he says, to remember. St. Augustine said, "I believe in order to understand," but as they Sing "Worthy Is The Lamb," I think how it is hard to believe that forgiveness would come having such a lowly appearance.

But I know, my father taught me, not to judge by appearance so the next week as I sip the plastic thimble-full of wine, I try to believe it is the blood of forgiveness. But if God is not going to remember my sins against me, why does He remember them against a lamb, or gentle Christ, in this poor thimble, so hard to believe.

It seems easier for my grandmother to believe. She has a thick black wig with the appearance of real hair, but that it doesn't budge. She used to sing " .. .liddle lamb zeadivy, a kiddIe eadivy too, wouldn't you?" Maybe. But drink the wine? It's not about the wine, she says, "We remember that God doesn't remember." Countless lambs and bulls die pointing to Jesus-the price of forgiveness.

And when I think about the price of forgiveness, I think of the cost of my weekly unwillingness to believe. I had forgotten most of my life, but now I remember how my sins, which in the movies have an innocent appearance, broke Christ's body and poured out his blood the color of red wine, and I think it makes sense mint jelly goes with lamb.

Because the Lamb whose blood was spilled to grant the cleanness of forgiveness is present, I believe, in the bread and wine. And I will see Him some day in His glorious appearance, but for now I will remember Hinl in my mind.

Additional information: This poem is in the form of the sestina.

Sestina

The Counsel of Chalcedon

Fronl 'Vikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A sestina is a highly structured poenl consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet (called its envoy or tornada), for a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words ends the lines of each of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time; if ,ve nunlber the first stanza's lines 123456, then the words ending the second stanza's lines appear in the order 615243, then 364125, then 532614, then 451362, and finally 246531. This organization is referred to as retrogradatio cruciata ("retrograde cross"). These six words then appear in the tercet as ,vell, with the teroet's first line usually containing 1 and 2, its second 3 and 4, and its third

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5 and 6 (but other versions exist, described below). English sestinas are usually written in ialnbic pentalneter or another decasyllabic meter.

The sestina ,vas invented in the late 12th oentury by the Provenc;al troubadour Arnaut Daniel.

Regarding the order of the key words in the tercet: Jorge de Sena, a Portuguese poet, indicates that the first line oontains ,vords 1 & 2, the seoond ,vords 3 & 4, and the final line words 5 & 6, in that order. The sestina by Philip Sidney, oited below, uses this order. Other souroes speoify 1 & 4; 2 & 5; 3 & 6. Sestina writers seeIn to have felt freer to alter this part of the pattern than the strict rotation and

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interchange of the end words in the six sestets.

The oldest British eXalnple of the fOrIn is a double sestina, "You Goat-Herd Gods", written by Philip Sidney. Vvriters such as Dante, A. C. Swinburne, Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound, ,V. H. Auden, John Ashbery and Elizabeth Bishop are all noted for haVing written sestinas of S0111e faIne.

Michaellvlinhojf, 1'/: is a 1ne1nbe1" qf Chalcedon Presbyterian Church in Cu,1111ning, Ga. He 1:S a g1"adu,ate qf Ge01"/Jia Tech with a degree in Science, Technology, and Cullture. l-Ie would lihe to get an M.F.A. in Oreative HTritinglPoetry and, Lord willing, be a high school teacher and auth01:

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