A Positively Poetic Priest

Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP 213) Merry Christmas! Joy to the World! I hope this Christmas season may be one of joy and grace for you as we celebrate the love of God which has saved us, even when we are constantly in need of saving from only ourselves. May light and hope enter your heart, that you may see Christ in all who are around you!

Good Morning! I don't know about y'all but did you notice the timing of today? This morning, Gabriel announces to Mary that she will have the baby Jesus... and then when y'all come back tonight, only a few hours later There's baby Jesus! I have been told that time goes fast when you're getting ready for a baby, but that seems a little too fast! Mary and Gabriel These two figures are quite polar opposites. Here we have Mary, a lowly, poor, dirty fourteen ish year old girl whose bridal price was maybe a donkey or a few sheep a nobody in a nobody town and then we have Gabriel one of God's archangels in charge of legions of angels keeper of the trumpet which will blow to signify the end of times a mass of energy, power, and light thrown together by God's plan to save the world. It almost sounds like the start of a Hollywood movie. Keeping in line with their outrageous disparity Gabriel greets Mary, an...

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Fourth Sunday of Advent, BCP 212) "Please keep all hands and feet inside until the ride has come to a complete stop. Thank you." For many in the church, this Sunday is going to feel like a roller coaster of emotion and story. We start the day with the Fourth Sunday of Advent... which usually gives us another few days or week to prepare for Christmas. Yet, this year, its only a few hours after we hear the story of Mary learning she will have a baby does the baby appear on the scene, changing the world. The Annunciation, the story of Mary and Gabriel, does actually have its own feast day in the church, nine months before Christmas, on March 25th. However, most people only hear this story during Advent. I hope you will join ...

12/14 "As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."  - John 17:21b-23 In the 17th chapter of the gospel according to John, Jesus earnestly prays for his followers. In his long prayer to God, he covers many subjects, but one of the most prevalent ones is that he wishes that his followers will live together in unity. He asks God to bind together all his followers so that they will be one as he and the Father are one. Unfortunately, Church history shows that Jesus' prayer has been desperately needed. Those of us who call ourselves Jesus' followers have seen fit to separate and divide ourselves in so many ways throughout the centuries. However, ...

In the gospel of Mark The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ Starts before Jesus is even on the scene. It starts with Isaiah... It starts with the prophets! Isaiah being the representative And then we get John. The crazy evangelist. Luckily we don't all have to wear camels hair and leather And eat honey and locusts. Though I thought about bringing some in for coffee hour this week... Any story really begins back before the main character Many times I've heard people tell their life stories by beginning with their parents or grandparents, because what comes before us makes a huge impact on who we are and what we do. Personally I know the truth of this in my own story My parents' stories have impacted my life in so many ways. I am named after my mother's mother, Sharon, who died in a car accident long before I was born. Yet, her name, her legacy, and her death, all impacted how I was raised and who I am today. So...

Have you ever seen the comedy movie  Chicken Little? The sky is falling! If you haven't seen the movie, what happens is that Chicken Little is sitting under a tree when a piece of sky falls and hits him on the head.  He starts panicking. He runs to the town bell tower and starts ringing the emergency bell. And everyone else starts panicking. Without knowing why. So much so, people are running around, running into things, screaming and carrying on, that the town water tower falls apart  and the huge round part at the top,  full of water, falls down and rolls around town destroying things. Chicken Little's panic does actually cause a real emergency. All because he believes the sky is falling. The sky is falling! Jesus says it, so it must be true. Quite literally, Jesus says the stars are falling out of the sky. Remember the three kinds of apocalypse? The world ending because of natural disaster the wor...

11/22/17 "Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen." - Thanksgiving Day, BCP 246 As we prepare for tomorrow's Thanksgiving feasts, either mentally or physically, let us also remember those who we are interdependent on for all the aspects of our Thanksgiving. None of us are alone in this community, we are dependent on others and we pray for their work and their needs. Especially as we turn from Thanksgiving into Black Friday and the shopping season in preparation of Christmas, let us be mindful of those who do not have the ability to serve a feast or buy presents. For the farmers and rancher...

11/17/17 "Bless, O Lord, this food to our use and us to thy service. Keep us ever mindful of the needs of others, in Jesus' Name we pray. Amen." Growing up as a child, this was the grace I learned to say before every meal. At first, each of us, my brothers and I, would rotate as to who was sitting in the 'grace chair' and had to say grace before the meal. It was always interesting to see how each of us said the same thing slightly differently. One of my brothers was a speed demon and said the words so fast we couldn't always understand what he was saying. Because of this, our family started a tradition of being mindful of the knees of others, not necessarily their needs... though as my Dad, a man with reoccurring knee problems, likes to say, everyone's knees do need the prayers and help. As we near the Thanksgiving holiday and think about all the things we are thankful for in this world, we have to give thanks for the food we eat on a daily b...

Three certainly is the magic number. Last week we had three kinds of saints. There are three aspects of God. There are three sides of a triangle. This week there are three kinds of apocalypse. This is going to be important. Not only for this week's Gospel story, but also for the whole season of Advent, just a couple of weeks away. They say this story about the Ten Bridesmaids is an apocalyptic story. However, when most of us think of apocalypse, we tend to think of it in two ways. Either in the sense of natural disasters ending the world, the first type of apocalypse, or in the sense of man-made destruction ending the world, the second type of apocalypse. You know the movies, 2012, Deep Impact, 28 Days Later, Armageddon... Hollywood loves making these movies. We have a unparalleled fascination with the end of the world. Yet, The story of the Ten Bridesmaids is about neither kind of apocalypse. There isn't a natural disaster or a man-m...