Blog
Advent’s Harvest
Where the ground is frozen,
raspberries will ripen.
Where the street is empty,
dancers will parade.
Where the embers are cold,
a phoenix will soar.
Where hope’s heart is broken,
compassion will bloom.
on Jeremiah 33:10-11
Let It Count
Let it count in our favor, O God,
that it’s been a rough year.
Let it be to our credit, O God,
that we can still find a prayer—
or at least a swear in your direction,
which should also count.
Put a “plus” in our column, O God,
for all the strikes against us.
Let it count in our favor that we
said grace at the table once or twice.
If today our most faithful effort is takeout,
let it not go without your understanding.
It has all rolled together, O God:
the horrors and fears, like life is stuck
with caps ALWAYS ON AND SHOUTING.
Let it count in our favor that our volume
has neither silenced the stormy winds
nor daunted the sun’s unyielding glare.
Let it be to our credit that we still say “please”
and “thank you,” that we give witness to heaven
when all the world is a dumpster fire—except
that it isn’t, really, which is why we still love.
If there’s nothing else redeeming about us,
O God, let love count in our favor.
O Lord, remember in David’s favor
all the hardships he endured.
(Psalm 132:1, NRSV)
Telling Trauma’s Story
Book publishing and church pastoring share a vocational aim: meaningful storytelling. A book can change your life with its story. So can the church. The church can mold your personal story, help you make sense of good and evil, shape your imagination for what is...
Covenants
Your promises I welcome, numerous and good, but the blamelessness I simply cannot manage. Perhaps, O Perfection, we can come to a different arrangement? I could give you my fear and awe -- easily; my name and faith, too -- several times over; but human things, O...
Sleepless
Tell me, stars, how often God has shown up for you in your cold existence. Over the millennia, how often has God been your renewal, your hope, your reason for being -- or have you died already, unnoticed, your light unrequited? Tell me, tears, if you ever grow tired...
Remembering
Remembering, O Light, that your sign of mercy is my sign of trust, from horizon to horizon, sunrise to sunset, mountains to seas. Taking a deep breath in, letting trust reach down to my toes. Remembering, O Life, that your time of patience is my time of wilderness...
Restraint
The LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” - Genesis 2:16-17 (NRSV) When the new year dawned last month, my social media feed was filled with people saying...
Ashes
Breath by breath, grief by grief, joy by joy, pain by heart-rending pain these fragile ashes turn and return and resign to the Holy, to the Trembling, to the Deep Mystery, to the Heritage of Relentless Love without which these same ashes could only sift and settle...
Stubborn
Most Holy Judge: for what we plainly know but cannot bring ourselves to confront, forgive us and be merciful to those harmed by the fallout. The truth does not need prophets yet you send them anyway, each one an invitation to understand and repent, to make way for...
Tent-Making
Let me pitch my tent by a lamppost in the snow somewhere in a dream of witches and wardrobes and wonders that taste of delight and courage. Let me roll out a heavy tarp under a mysterious new moon resting alongside the wise wind and the patient oak tree, until...
I Cannot Fly
I cannot fly, O God of the soaring eagle; I cannot even leap with a dancer's grace. But today I can wake and I can rise, and perhaps the strong wind will remind me not to be so rooted in fear. I cannot measure up, O God of the starry heavens; I cannot even pretend to...
