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Category Archives: current events
Preaching from the shadows
The sound of mallet on metal
wood and splintered flesh
ricochets around the city walls
shivering the fabric of
the crowd that clothes the alleyways
too often lost in thought and prayers
we fall without an echo
into the open grave Continue reading
Capitalizing on panic
On the stories we tell ______________________ I saw a story in the Washington Post where a man named Kevin Thomas started making pop-up safe rooms for schools – kind of like the panic rooms that became a status symbol in … Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, story
Tagged gun violence, school shootings, security
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A psalm of lament
We turn to you, Compassionate One,
with your endless forbearance and infinite mercy, and pray that your patience will one day break;
because it seems some days that ours, our capacity for carnage, is everlasting. Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, poetry, prayer
Tagged gun violence, lament, mass shooting, Michigan State, Psalm, school shooting
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All Saints 2022
All Saints’ Sunday 2022; Luke 6:20-31 _____________ According to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Laurentius (St Lawrence) was the “principal of the deacons” serving in Rome in the middle years of the third century, when yet another round of persecutions of … Continue reading
Posted in current events, holy days, sermon, story
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Come, let us argue it out
A sermon for October 30, nine days before the US midterm elections. The readings are for Year C Proper 26, Track 2, and include Isaiah 1:10-18 and Luke 19:1-10, the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus. ______________________________ What does repentance look … Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged gun violence, Isaiah 1:10-18, Jesus, Luke 19:1-10, repentance, salvation, Zacchaeus
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An “unsafe peace”
It is strange that peace should be so divisive: that putting love before enmity, generosity before gain, gentleness before vengeance, patience before pride, kindness before triumph, justice before profit should be a less popular way forward than winning at all cost. But that division has been our shadow side since Cain slew Abel out of envy and Jacob cheated Esau out of his inheritance by using his own hunger against him. Continue reading
At the intersection
At the intersection of futility and ragehangs a monument to discord,its anthem the harsh horn punctuatedby arguments, epithets, and gunshots.It is not rooted in earth or tarmac,not rendered in stone or broken glass.You will breathe it unknowing in air hung … Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, poetry, prayer
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Peace, and if not peace, then protest
If we feel as though defeat is always at hand, may it be a reminder of the cross of Christ, and be turned to our hope. If we feel as though the world is at war with itself, with us; if we think the world we thought we knew is strange and full of wolves, may it be a reminder of our own status as lost sheep, dependent on the love of our shepherd to find us and bring us home. If we feel as though peace has dissolved into protest, may we lift up our feet and find ourselves on the way of the Cross. Continue reading
#GunstoGardens
Pistols into ploughshares Starve a fever, feed cold steel barrels into the forge Beneath scorched earth cool claythe kiln at earth’s core;creation’s heart of stone Beneath the concrete floorreverb of the hammer starts a rumour – revolution, evolution, healing – over the anvil, fever … Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, poetry, prayer
Tagged #GunstoGardens, blacksmithing, Isaiah 2:4
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Among the living and the dead
When the demons saw Jesus, they were afraid. They begged for their lives. When Jesus showed mercy even to the demons, they proved their destructive nature by plunging the herd of swine into the sea. Did he not know it must be so? It was their nature to be evil spirits. It was, it is Jesus’ nature to be love. Continue reading
over the water 