It is difficultto get the news from poemsyet people die miserably every day……for lackof what is found there— William Carlos Williams Today I hit a wall I didn’t see coming. I ran into people who couldn’t see the metaphor sitting right in front of us. They weren’t stupid or belligerent or intractable; they just didn’t…
Madeleine L’Engle would have been ninety-two today. I think of her every Advent (and a number of other days as well) because she is the one who taught me about the Liturgical Year – through her writing, that is. I never got to meet her, though I had a couple of near misses. If you…
The night is far spent . . . Yes, there’s another half to that sentence, but it’s too early to write it down. We still have weeks of days growing shorter, of darkening afternoons, of lying down to sleep in the middle of all that is not yet. While the new year we mark with…
A couple of years ago, I recorded a story I wrote some years before that for a Christmas Eve service at our church in Marshfield, Massachusetts. I have some of the CDs available for purchase, should you wish to share them, or have one for yourself. Paypal says you can buy one by clicking the…
When it comes to spiritual metaphors, kingdom is problematic for me. I’ve written about it before. Thus, my sonnet offering for today. When Jesus talked of God, he spoke of shepherds and of kings –the metaphors held meanings people knew;they’ve survived the centuries when we speak and when we sing,yet the original meanings struggle to…
I don’t remember the first time I heard a Bob Dylan song. I do, however, remember the first one I learned on my guitar. It was 1970, I was a ninth grader with a new guitar, and my friend Jim had the words and chords: come gather ‘round people wherever you roamand admit that the…
I’m a regular. If Fullsteam Brewery were casting a remake of Cheers, I’d be in the running for the role of Norm. I don’t drink nearly as much as he did, but when I walk in, they know me. And I love it. I’m also a regular at my church. My friend, Jimmy – AKA…
The text today was Isaiah 65:17-25 and Ginger’s sermon ran the gardens from Eden to Woodstock. Here’s where it all took me. The sermon was a mash up of Isaiah and Joni’s words:how looking back can tell us where we’re going;that the good old days were best is prophetically absurd —nostalgia sets our cataracts to…
In the Grand Scheme of It All,truth rides in on small things –the way a shooting stardefines the Universein a fleeting gestureof magnificent futility. In the Giant Medical Center,we stood beside the bed,the small room stuffedwith relatives and machines,neither saying muchof anything. We came bearing Cupcakes:chocolate, at his wife’s request –our small gesture ofconfectionery compassion.My…
The lectionary it seems uses the last few weeks before Advent to dish out some difficult passages. This morning’s came from Haggai. The children sang, “If you’re happy clap your hands”and Ginger gave a nod to “Glory Days,”We sang “Wayfaring Stranger” with piano – not a bandand then wrestled with the prophet’s turn of phrase…