Category Archives: preparing for Sunday with poetry

Anything good

Anything good this way comes, fragrant from the desert, fat from fasting, presumptuous in his humility,faint traces of aloe following him like a draft, children hanging from his heels like lambs trying to suckle from the hem of his garment. … Continue reading

Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Forewarned

They left by another way to avoid the falling stars bombarding the night sky, minor apocalypses scoring their trails across the Red Sea. They dreamed of corridors between the waters knowing that God created dry land once. Cradled by sand dunes haunted by Herod’s gaudy and the Child’s humble glory they … Continue reading

Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, poetry, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Word

In the beginning, the Word breathed light. In the beginning, the Word formed the vowels of the ocean, hard consonants of land. In the beginning, Word crawled, swam, flew, blossomed. Before flesh, there was the Word; utter God, utter Being, utter Love. John 1:1-18

Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nothing is impossible

If nothing is impossible with God, what can be trusted? The sun may lose its grip on heaven, fall helpless to the ocean, sink or set the world aflame, melting its willing, molten heart. Birds of prey may sing lullabies … Continue reading

Posted in advent meditations, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The great forerunner

A star is a miraculous being, born of the infalling of dust and ashes, the sacred debris of creation set aflame on the altar of nightfall;  A miracle blazing by night, as dawn breaks open the path of the rising Sun, outshone, the star remains, its fire … Continue reading

Posted in advent meditations, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

John, the post-traumatic prophet

My first Advent as a priest was the season of Sandy Hook. That Sunday the Gospel was about John. I realized that he must have grown up in the shadow of that massacre of innocents committed by Herod; although he, like his cousin, escaped, it would leave its mark on his parents and his small self.
I find myself this Advent once again, for obvious reasons, contemplating post-traumatic John the Baptist, his infant self and all that imprinted itself upon him through the coming of the Christ child and the world’s unwillingness to accept the angels’ proclamation of peace upon the earth.
#preparingforSundaywithpoetry Continue reading

Posted in advent meditations, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Endings and beginnings

Unfurl the sails and let them cover the sun, the moon, the stars with the urgency of glory glorying in the new creation, with tender attention to the fig tree that you always loved, seeing it swell and fall over … Continue reading

Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Words that do not pass away

I do not remember well my mother’s voice any more; the soprano on the cd is younger than I knew her. What I carry buried deep within my skull are nursery rhymes and nonsense that emerge like sea mammals, occasionally, … Continue reading

Posted in advent meditations, lectionary reflection, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Because all is not lost

I do not think that you are a harsh and grasping God, and there is nowhere to reap that you did not sow, whether with promise or with judgement; what, then, to make of this weeping and gnashing? If you are to be believed, the one who doesn’t recognize your … Continue reading

Posted in lectionary reflection, preparing for Sunday with poetry | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A parable for the anxious

Her voice rasped like a struck match from crying out her wares: Oil! Get your oil here! Don’t run out. She spent her days like a candleburned at both ends, her core alight with the vision of a strip of lamplight creeping from beneath heavy … Continue reading

Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation | Tagged , , | Leave a comment