Last night I went to an ecclesiastical council, which sounds as though I should have been in a fancy robe with a funny hat, but in the United Church of Christ it simply means a gathering of people from the churches in our association to approve someone for ordination pending a call. The candidate told…
We worshipped today at First African Baptist Church in Richmond. It was a rich and meaningful service and the people there greeted us with extravagant hospitality. I have stories to tell about our day, but tonight, I am still dealing with feelings brought up by what I have seen while we have been here. Here’s…
I offer an out-of-season weather poem, based on a first line I found in notes for an older version of this poem. Stay warm and dry, friends. dress code I dress myself with rain, shape a hat out of clouds, make a scarf of the wind, wrap myself in a coat of many shadows— with…
passive resistance more mornings than not I find myself wishing there was no passive voice. I lose patience with a world where things are said, bills are passed, mistakes are made, women are harassed, damage is done, and lives are lost, as though the mistakes make themselves, the violence happens without perpetrators, and the shootings…
affirmation let yes be our response to most any of life’s questions . . . not an answer as much as a declaration: yes to the chance, the hope, the opportunity, the near-miss, the adventure, the small gesture, the long shot, the promise, the possibility, the unexplainable, the failure, and even the grief: yes to…
far afield I wonder what the shepherds did the year after the angels came, or how the Magi went about their business when they got back home. Do you think the innkeeper woke in the night sometimes and opened the door, hoping for strangers, or sat out in the barn for no reason? How did…
light matters I stopped at the sink to rinse out my coffee cup at the very instant that the rising sun shot anticipatory flames of color from below the horizon, igniting the clouds with incendiary hope for just a minute . . . . Before I could call you to the window the fire had…
Uncle Howard and I met for breakfast again this morning, as has been my lenten custom thus far, and he woke me with these words: Again and again, we are impressed with the fact that little things can make big differences. A little act of kindness at a moment of great need makes all the…
Bryan is one of the folks who was a part of the youth group at University Baptist Church in Fort Worth back when I was Youth Minster. He mentioned in a post that today marked the thirtieth anniversary of the release of U2’s The Joshua Tree. In a comment, one of his friends told how…
palm reader I’ve been staring at my palm: the little litany of lines that runs from wrist to thumb, the deep-rutted roads like poorly-planned highways across a desert of aging skin— dry riverbeds: canyons carved by age and action, crossed and connected by the lesser lines, faded reminders of days when dreams roamed these valleys…