delayed sonnet

The first Toni Morrison book I ever read was her first book, The Bluest Eye, which tells the story of Pecola, a young African-American girl growing up in Lorain, Ohio in the 1940s. Because of her mannerisms and her dark skin, she is considered “ugly.” She has a doll that is white. Pecola wishes she…

The parable of the Samaritan who stopped is well-worn and often told, thanks to the Revised Common Lectionary. This year, I found him in the supermarket parking lot, straightening the carts. Thanks for reading. _________________________ We reveal a lot about ourselves in a supermarket parking lot. Specifically, we reveal a lot by what we do…

I spent the week wondering if the magi ever knew what their visit had helped to set in motion on a couple of fronts, which led me to this sermon. ______________________________ When I was in high school I had an after school job working as a gofer—all errands all the time—in a doctor’s office. It…

My father and I shared a love of hymns. Actually, it would probably be truer to say I learned to love hymns in large part because of my father. Though he rarely sang outside of the house, he loved the songs of faith. One of his favorites in his later years was Gloria Gaither’s “I…

It’s been a while since I posted a sermon, mostly because all of the medical stuff I have been dealing with has made what I have offered from the pulpit less than postable. But I’m back and talking about the birds and flowers that Jesus pointed to as examples of how to be human. _____________________________…

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to evaluate the political bands that have connected them with another, and to assess their place among the other countries of the earth, a decent respect to the opinions of humanity requires that they should declare how the principles of their founding…