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Category Archives: poetry
A prayer for a bad day
(Save it for when you need it. May you never need it.) This post first appeared at the Episcopal Cafe, Speaking to the Soul, on February 10, 2021 There are days that will not let go.They drag at you like … Continue reading
red white and blue
Content warning for fear of gun violence at a school sirens stretch the air like an old jazz horn lights the color of a fresh wound pause snow around the school drive pounded into ice by parents pacing out their … Continue reading
Posted in Gun control, poetry, prayer, story
1 Comment
A prayer for the preacher when words fail
January 9, 2021 Beyond Jordan, the baptizer cried repentance, preaching to snakes, devouring locusts, razing the wilderness with his words, confronting kings and drowning sins. At his neck, the knowledge of his own humility, the prickling of glory about to … Continue reading
Posted in current events, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation
Tagged John the Baptist, preaching, the baptism of Jesus, Word of God
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The Magi by Night
They travelled by night.
They followed his star, meaning
they had to wait for darkness to fall as a mantle
about their shoulders to know the way; Continue reading
Posted in Holy Days, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer
Tagged Epiphany, holy darkness, magi, Matthew 2:1-15
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The first breath
scented with humanity – the particulates of life – held for what seemed like eternity, let loose at last (his mother, astonished at the audacity of her body, gasped) with the force of a singular creation, splitting the skies, setting … Continue reading
Solstice
This poem first appeared at Bearings Online, a publication of the Collegeville Institute, at last year’s winter solstice Solstice At the abyss of the yearthe sun is silent;but in the bleak midwintersomething shiftsA fearful hope, homunculus,wakes the woman: lightbeyond the … Continue reading
Posted in Advent Meditations, Holy Days, poetry, prayer
Tagged Collegeville Institute, nativity, solstice
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Magnificat
Her wisdom undoes arrogance,
the thrones of power are dust underfoot.
My God, my spirit sings your praise;
my soul sings out your holy Name. Continue reading
Posted in Advent Meditations, poetry, prayer
Tagged Divine pronouns, Hubert Hastings Parry, Jerusalem, Maginificat, Mary, pandemic, Spanish influenza
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Pine
They strew palms before the hooves of a donkeylike candy beneath the wheels of a slowly-moving car. My God has laid before me a path of pine needles,and will I hesitate to cry Hosanna?
Currents
Looking to a goose feather floating on the surfacefor a landmark is rank foolishness; yet its inconstancy may be no greater thanthe line of seagulls ranged along the rocksnor the white-capped waves,the deck-chaired people on the sand, even the lake … Continue reading
Undertow
Ripping tides, throwing horses, hurling seabirds to the sky, thrashing rock into sand, wrecking the abandoned homes of limpets and clams, reducing it all to grit and foam, beaching itself in exhaustion, receding; the sand dries, the rock stands and … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer
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