Try to Praise The Mutilated World

Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June’s long days, and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine. The nettles that methodically overgrow the abandoned homesteads of exiles. You must praise the mutilated world. You watched the stylish yachts and ships; one of them had a long trip ahead of it, while salty oblivion awaited others. You’ve seen the refugees going nowhere, you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully. You should praise the mutilated world. Remember the moments when we were together in a white room and the curtain fluttered. Return in thought to the concert where music flared. You gathered acorns in the park in autumn and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars. Praise the mutilated world and the gray feather a thrush lost, and the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns.

Adam Zagajewski, 2002

Translated by Clare Cavanagh

In the spring of 1995, I stood at the front of the Landmark Auditorium with Anne Kosseff and Meaghan Gustafson and harmonized on the Byrds’ song “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season).” We’d been practicing for weeks. This was our contribution to the Coming of Age service our class presented to the congregation. Later in the service, I read the famous lines from Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran that begin: “Your children are not your children / They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.”

At the end of our service, an adult from the congregation handed us each a rose in full bloom with the thorns still on, signifying our entry into the season of our lives when we could no longer be protected from all of life’s threats and stings—symbolically affirming that we were now mature enough to understand that the beauty of life is in its complexity, thorns and all.

I don’t know when our congregation began the tradition of having our Coming of Age class design and lead a service, but my older sister Valerie Tremelat did it in 1988, so I do know that it’s a ritual we’ve observed annually for at least 35 years. I don’t know how many people have sung “Turn! Turn! Turn!” or read from The Prophet in that time, but I’m willing to bet they’ve both been popular choices. What I do know for sure is that for as long as most of us can remember, we have handed the pulpit over to our teens and celebrated their place in our congregation. They share their questions and ideas, their beliefs and wishes and hopes for the future, and we listen.