A Positively Poetic Priest

Say Cheese! This coming Sunday is Social Media Sunday across the Episcopal Church, and in some other denominations. What is Social Media Sunday? It is a day for churches to highlight their gifts, members, and worship together by posting on social media websites to share the Good News of Christ with the world. Using the hashtag #sms18, churches all across the country will be sharing who they are with pictures, posts, and video. Here at St. John's and Grace, we have lots of gifts, members, and worship moments to share. We are going to participate in Social Media Sunday in a couple of ways. First, during the announcements time during both services, I will take a selfie of the congregation to post on our social media sites. Second, we are going to remind and encourage you to post on your social media sites about your time at St. John's or Grace and share your experience with others. Third, we are going to have a laptop in the Parish Hall open to our social media websites for ...

This always happens to me when I go on vacation. I get relaxed and restful and then I look back at what I normally do all in one day and I am amazed. How can I manage so much in one day!? Why do I fill up my life with so much busyness? Unfortunately, it is not an atypical way of living these days. Our American society puts such an emphasis on busyness and filling our time with activities, we sometimes forget why we do what we do. However, the why of what we do is very important. As I am on vacation, I always at some point reflect on my normal life. Why is my routine the way it is? Do I want to do all the things I have on my schedule? What can I let go of? How do I want to allow myself to rest in my normal life? As most of us have started back into the fall rush of activities and work, take a moment to reflect on your schedule, on your busyness. Why do you do each thing? Is there a purpose? Are there things on your schedule which are simply busyness? How could you let some of them go...

"The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord." – Psalm 24:1 We have many many possessions. We think we possess them. However, everything in the world belongs to God, and we are only stewards of them. We come into this world as we leave this world, with nothing except ourselves. We cannot change our eternal lives by storing up possessions. In reality, the more we have, the more we are possessed by our possessions. As we come into the season of our Stewardship campaign, it is good to reflect on how much God has given us and how much of what we have is a gift. In the Jewish tradition, the understanding of what we give back to God is very clearly spelled out. We are to give God, through the Temple, the first tenth of all our harvest, our income, and our gifts. Yet, when Jesus comes and teaches the people, he doesn't specify how much or what percentage we are to give. He teaches that we should share out of a thankful heart. For those...

disjointed manifestations of love, of broken hearts survivor's guilt in trade I speak of which I know to give, one must receive I was rescued first, indeed... there is no mistaking the need the chain wrapped around our heads linking me to you and you and you... 9/10/17

Ephphatha. Be opened. Ephphatha is a funny word to our ears. In Aramaic it means to be opened. Aramaic was the language Jesus spoke most of the time. It is characteristic of the gospel of Mark that we hear the words Jesus used, instead of being translated into Greek and then English. There is an understanding in Mark that the words of Jesus are powerful. Words do have power, that is true, though not in the same way as some people in the ancient world understood them. They weren't magical. However, it is interesting that Mark was concerned about representing the words Jesus used. Ephphatha. Be opened. The woman in the story from the gospel passage was certainly ready to be open. I imagine that by this point in her life, she was at the end of her rope with trying to help her daughter. I'm sure over the years, she had tried everyone. The physicians, the local healing woman, the priests, and nothing had worked to this point. She was prob...

This coming Sunday is Rally Day! The Sunday in which we kick off our program year at St. John's and Grace. This year we start the program off with a Community Service Project; we will be making Care Packages for the Homeless. The list of items we need is below. We start off the year remembering Jesus' service to those in his community and his care for all those around him. We follow in his footsteps and we offer our gifts and services to those in need in our community. In doing this community service project, we also allow the members of Grace Lutheran to participate in the national Lutheran "God's work. Our hands." day this Sunday. In Jesus God promises to be with us always and to help us in times of need. However, sometimes we have to be the hands which do God's work. St. Teresa of Avila wrote, Christ Has No Body Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world, Your...

the terrifying passionate tension of loving and hating in the same moment the mind boggling twist of light, both wave and particle intercepted as both sound and sight the shaking aftermath of rage I give my body to the night the darkness which is not judgment but rather thought 9/7/17

Human relationships are complicated. We can leave that statement as fact just the way it is. Most human relationships fall into one of three categories, though even these broad categories don't always catch everyone in our lives. We have acquaintances, we have friends, and we have "family". Acquaintances are those people we know through social events,  through work, through groups and we only talk to them in those contexts. We don't usually go out of our way for acquaintances the way we would for friends or family, but we could chit chat with them in some capacity. Our relationships with them are characterized by the social laws and rules of the context in which we know them. Friends are those people we spend time together with on a mutual basis. We like them, we know something more about them. We might share funny emails with them or call them occasionally, We would know if they became ill or lost their dog. Our relationships ...