Tag Archives: crucifixion

Good Friday: a pieta

He died with the cry crushed from his chest,calling out from the cross to his mother.They crucified him on a stolen hill.They gambled away his clothes.He called out to his mother, shecould not swaddle his naked pain. When he was … Continue reading

Posted in current events, holy days, poetry | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Murdering Truth

It seems as though when we have beaten truth into our own image, and still it insists on speaking its own mind, we wash our hands of it. We make enemies of purveyors of inconvenient information. We shoot the messenger. Continue reading

Posted in current events | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Holy Week

Seven days. Seven shades of suffering silence. Seven last words: thirst, famine, fever, finality, yet, too, there is forgiveness, family, a future spit from split lips, a dry tongue still willing to kiss the face of God

Posted in holy days, poetry, prayer | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Stealing a blessing

Christ the King Sunday arrives with less pomp and circumstance than ambiguous authority; a compromised crown; the scandal of the crucifixion. Yet there is a promise to be heard: not only that we, like the thief on the cross whose … Continue reading

Posted in blessings, holy days, lectionary reflection | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The penultimate last word

“It is finished.” Hurry, Jesus. Hurry to the appointment you have made to duel death. Hasten the darkening sky, that  a false dawn may break early; that you may fell the great destroyer. The soldiers come with mallets and spear, we hear … Continue reading

Posted in holy days, poetry, prayer | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Still

At the eclipse, the birds fall silent, the earth shrugs its mantle of shadows close; death comes easily, a simple matter of forgiving all that life still owes Resurrection rises with the spring equinox sun pressing home its higher vantage. … Continue reading

Posted in poetry, prayer | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Seven Last Words of Christ

He was quoting the twenty-second Psalm, a prayer already centuries old. It is a cry as old as time. It is a cry that echoes all around. And yet, it perseveres, it is repeated only because at its heart, at its depth, at the height of its agony it holds out hope against hope that someone is still listening. That God will, in fact, return, to comfort us.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Continue reading

Posted in meditation | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The old, rugged cross

made for glory in crystal and ivory; god’s gory death in the creative imagination; torture transformed into breathtaking beauty;   would he tear down our totems, turn over tables, whip us weeping into the the night at the sight of … Continue reading

Posted in meditation, poetry | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Good Friday 2014

With condolences to all victims of violence and their families. Last Sunday, a short while after the Passion Gospel was ended in churches across the nation, across the world, a man took a shotgun to the parking lot of a … Continue reading

Posted in holy days, homily | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sermon for Christ the King 2013

The gospel of Luke, which we have been reading since last Advent; the gospel of Luke, from its beginning to its end, is about a revolution, the quiet revolution of the Magnificat, the secret story of a young woman who … Continue reading

Posted in sermon | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment