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Monthly Archives: August 2023
Savour
This week’s #preparingforSundaywithpoetry perhaps bears more relation to the stories of Jesus’ original temptation than to his twin command to Peter to, “Get behind me, Satan!” But between those threads, and the idea that one could follow Jesus, taking up … Continue reading
Don’t we?
It has been a horrible weekend for gun violence in America. I cannot keep my heart from going out to the family of the teenager gunned down at a high school football game, while I was listening to the strains … Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, prayer
Tagged gun violence, Jacksonville, prayer, racism, school shootings
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Who do you say that I am?
It is an apt place for new beginnings. Named and renamed, with Simon Peter’s words the Baals, the gods of Pan and of Rome, the idolatry of empire, all were buried beneath the cataracts, and the name of the living God was spoken over the water, like a baptism. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Banias, church, Confession of Christ, names, naming
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On this rock
They set a boulder to blot life
from the garden, light from the tomb.
When it was rolled away you spoke
her name into the morning like dew. Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer
Tagged #preparingforSundaywithpoetry, faith, rock, Stonehenge, Year A Proper 16
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Silent prayer
Nothing is silent. The breath of God is not absent. The wheeze of trees in full leaf hefting their branches in dance. The sigh of waves that fall before they reach the shore. The call of an ant six whispery feet one side of a blade of grass. The sun raging with … Continue reading
On forgiveness
Let me ask it plainly: Would Joseph have forgiven his brothers so completely if they had not been completely beholden to him? Would he have been so magnanimous if he were not dressed in magnificent robes? Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged forgiveness, Genesis 45:1-15, Joseph, Matthew 15:10-28, Romans 11:29-32, Year A Proper 15
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First and last
Do you remember how,in the parable, he paid them, last and first?To the first he was fair, but to the last he was magnificent. Neither knew whether to laugh or shout or fall to their knees; so we, too, swayed between the thirsty and the relieved, envying and blaming each in … Continue reading
Have a heart
When Jesus treads upon the storm, he reminds his disciples, he reminds us, that he is that Word of God that quells any force that mitigates against life, against light, against hope. The commentaries tell us that walking on water is a feat reserved to the divine; it is a quelling of the chaos, a subjugation of the elements that belongs only to the Creator of all things.[i] Jesus, coming to his disciples on the sea, was showing them who he was, who he is. The wind and the waves may have been against them, but Jesus says, “Take heart, it is I.” Continue reading
Walking on water
Heartracing like the tideebbing and flowing withoutvolition, permissionbattering this vesselbattered by the moonand its phasesfading Do not be afraidof ghostsconjured of foamand fearsome prayer on the cusp of translation Takea stepmy handmy life and let it betake heartthe storm by … Continue reading
Transfiguration and the transformative gospel
I enjoy a cleverly devised myth as much as the next person; but what sustains me is this: that I know that God is with us, that God loves us more than we love life itself; that when the world is too loud, or stuns us into silence, Christ is still speaking in that still, small voice, the language of mercy. Listen to him. Continue reading
over the water 