Resting in Peace and Living in Peace
Resting in Peace!
There is a famous Israeli Poet, Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) who wrote a stark poem on “resting in peace.” While we usually use this phrase after a person dies (may he Rest In Peace) Amichai wrote about resting in peace during one’s life. In other words, resting in the shadow of personal and communal peace. This sort of peace is something that we could all use about now. It is in this hope, that I pray that Amichai’s poem will inspire us all to find, and help others live in peace.
Yehuda Amichai
I, may I rest in peace – I, who am still living, say,
May I have peace in the rest of my life.
I want peace right now while I'm still alive.
I don't want to wait like that pious man who wished for one leg
of the golden chair of Paradise, I want a four-legged chair
right here, a plain wooden chair. I want the rest of my peace now.
I have lived out my life in wars of every kind: battles without
and within, close combat, face-to-face, the faces always
my own, my lover-face, my enemy-face.
Wars with the old weapons—sticks and stones, blunt axe, words,
dull ripping knife, love and hate,
and wars with newfangled weapons—machine gun, missile,
words, land mines exploding, love and hate.
I don't want to fulfill my parents' prophecy that life is war.
I want peace with all my body and all my soul.
Rest me in peace.
The Cowtown Clergy wish to all, that we find this peace in the light of God and in the sunshine of mutual friendship.