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Category Archives: poetry
It’s still cold
Water pipes slamming, cranking out icy fury: I know how they feel.
the light of the world
When you hide your face, the sky falls. Stars burn cold; the sun slumps, refusing to rise to the occasion; the moon gapes like a dumb rock. When you look away, ashen shadows coat everything with their fingerless touch. Turn … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, sermon preparation
Tagged light, Matthew 5:13-20
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Seasonal
Dislocated daydreams: salt spray from a city street; unkept promises.
Failing Grace
The dark wood, its grain barely illuminated by the stained-glass shafts, invites introspection, the fear of failing, flailing: “Wait! I am not ready,” but it consumed me anyway, half-baked.
Posted in poetry
Tagged failure, grace, Holy Spirit, ordination anniversary, pews, stained glass
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A Gethsemane prayer
For once, just for once you tried to lay your burdens, those acquired from crowds and children, a collection of tax collectors, sinners and scribes along the way – for once, just for once you tried to lay them on … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry
Tagged garden, gethsemane, Jesus, prayer, sons of thunder
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In the bleak midwinter
I would like, if it will, for time to freeze, stand still so that breath becomes redundant, superfluous steam in the empty air. The beauty of the snow falls on a bleak, not a meek heart, burning with cold fire … Continue reading
Posted in poetry
Tagged cold, cold snap, polar vortex, seasonal affective disorder, winter
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Reflection for the turn of the year
I told you, didn’t I? I told you that the walls were cracked and warped, crumbling and full of rising damp and dry rot, unfit for habitation. But you went right ahead and moved in anyway. First, you knocked though … Continue reading
Saint Lucy’s Day
An Advent meditation for the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio Friday, December 13, 2013 I remember learning, from John Donne’s Nocturnall, that S Lucie’s day was the shortest, the darkest, “the yeares midnight,” as he would have it. It took me … Continue reading
Posted in advent meditations, holy days, poetry
Tagged Advent, John 1:9, John Donne, light, shortest day, St Lucy, year's midnight
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Christ the King
The honest thief Don’t tell me you are saving me while we hang here side by side in searing pain under a searing sun; don’t talk to me of gardens of ease where mercy falls down like a river when … Continue reading
Hoping and praying
Illuminated by hope, prayer chatters across the garden fence between earth and heaven, clouding the air with gossipy details… When hope has set beyond the horizon, prayer retreats into the house, slams the door, draws down the shades, unwilling to submit to … Continue reading
Posted in poetry
Tagged depression and spirituality, hamlet, heaven, hope, optimism, pessimism, prayer
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over the water 