All rights reserved
© Rosalind C Hughes and over the water, 2011-2021. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosalind C Hughes and over the water, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing
https://bookstore.upperroom.org/Products/1921/a-family-like-mine.aspxWhom Shall I Fear: Urgent Questions for Christians in an Age of Violence
https://www.amazon.com/Whom-Shall-Fear-Questions-Christians/dp/0835819671-
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
RevGalBlogPals
Meta
Category Archives: poetry
Lost in prayer
Sometimes when I pray the words scurry by like ants I watch their silent progress unregistered on the kitchen scale undulating in their trail unnoticed until they become a swarm indistinguishable one from the next Sometimes there is one you see that carries five thousand times its weight … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer
Tagged ants, distraction, Episcopal Cafe, Episcopal Journal, prayer
Leave a comment
Where your treasure is
This upcoming Sunday’s Gospel reading includes Jesus’ aphorism: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34 and parallels). Last week, looking for something I have already forgotten, I found at the back of my bedside drawer the name tag of my grandmother’s dog, which I have apparently and largely unknowingly kept for some forty years; hence this poem. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation, spiritual autobiography
Tagged Luke 12:34, Matthew 6:21, treasure
Leave a comment
Heron
The heron is back. No doubtit is not the same one as before.This heron is taller, leaner,fixes me with a bolder eye. No doubtthe old one is buried beneath the surface of shared memory, guiding this newcometo fertile fishing grounds. No doubt“One day … Continue reading
At the intersection, revisited
Listening to this morning’s Gospel of the parable of the Good Samaritan, envisioning the steep and scary road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, I was moved to revisit also the intersection referenced in yesterday’s prayer poem, to seek hope in the mercy that Jesus related. Where is our mercy? Where is our hope? Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, story
Tagged Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37, Year C Proper 10
Leave a comment
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
1 Comment
#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
Leave a comment
He descended into hell
He ascended into heaven,and sitteth at the right hand of God … Thence shall he cometo judge the quick and the dead,he who sitteth at the righthand of God who sees the sparrowin flight and will not leta feather fall … Continue reading
Posted in current events, Gun control, Holy Days, poetry, prayer, Whom Shall I Fear?
Tagged Ascension, gun violence, Hosea 11:3-4, Matthew 10:29, school shooting, The Apostles Creed, Uvalde
Leave a comment
Recognition
Resurrection plus ten:is the shock wearing off or setting in?That time when the child was lostthree days,three hours,three minutesthat were once a lifetimethen found; the heartdoes not readily recover;it skips each timethe beloved is seenor imagined from the cornerof a … Continue reading
Peter denies the Christ
Peter denies the Christ(John 18:1-27) Malchus It was dark. Smokefrom torches refused to rise, hung about the olives and our eyes,flames close to dying as though lightitself were loath to bear witness Servant girl It was cold;the kind of springmorning … Continue reading
Posted in Holy Days, poetry, prayer
Tagged Garden of Gethsemane, Good Friday, Holy Week, Malchus, Maundy Thursday, Passion Gospel, Peter, Simon Peter
Leave a comment
The Friday Fast: Do not rush to Easter
Do not rush to Easter You may stumble over someone slowlycarrying their cross, might miss the quiet wordsof sacrifice: my body for you, my blood.Do not sleepwalk past the garden, where olive grovesgroan and dream of peace. Do not rush, … Continue reading
over the water 