A Positively Poetic Priest

 When I think of lights shining in the darkness that cannot be overcome, I always think of starlight. Stars are huge burning balls of gaseous mixtures light-years away from us. What we see is history written large in the night sky and those stars are not overcome by the surrounding darkness of space they continue to burn and blaze in relationship with the darkness. The light of the stars unfortunately is hard to see these days because of light pollution. With so many outdoor lights - and extremely bright ones with new LED lights and plane lights up in the sky It means its no longer easy to see starlight to know the true starlight from all the rest of the light Being able to see the swath of the Milky Way is gone in so many places. We have seemingly disconnected ourselves from the rest of the galaxy with too much light we drown out the starlight. All too often we do this in many other ways in our lives. We listen to so many voices, our families and friends, the newscasters, our favo...

 "Love came down at Christmas Love all lovely, Love divine; Love was born at Christmas; star and angels gave the sign" Christine Rossetti's poem is a lovely one. And the hymn is wonderful too. A lovely Christmas song for Advent. Christmas is actually not the first manifestation of divine love. Christmas is not even the first manifestation of divine love in a person. Adam was. However, divine love did come into being at Christmas as the baby Jesus. This is the love waited for something understandable and relatable and able to be proved, well, as long as you believe Jesus... God exists and is present. And yet. This is definitely not how we approach Christmas. My husband knows how difficult I am to watch Christmas movies with because any time a movie starts going into 'the true meaning of Christmas' and they don't talk about the salvation of the cosmos from sin and death through love manifest... which never happens, I will say, you're wrong! to the television...

If I asked you all to imagine a green hill with a blue sky with some small white puffy clouds on it, how many of you would see the Microsoft Windows background screen which was so popular for decades? It is reportedly one of the most widely known photographs ever taken it is now titled Bliss, originally titled Bucolic Green Hills bought from National Geography photographer Charles O'Rear it depicts a green hill and blue sky with a few white clouds on it. It was taken on the Sonoma Napa county line in California in 1996. The hill was in a resting stage between different vintages of wine grapes at the time and the story goes, O'Rear was driving to visit his girlfriend after a storm earlier in the day and saw the scene at the perfect moment. He put it up on a photo sharing website from where Microsoft bought it to use as their Windows background image. It is somewhat ironic to me, in an age of technology as more and more of spend hours staring at screens that most of us have at so...

 "Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation." wait... did I just hear what I think I heard? the scriptures say, be at peace while waiting??? well, that is easier said than done. If I think about all the waiting I have done in my life I can say that much of it has not been the most peaceful. Anticipatory excitement or anxiety usually get to me quickly. The theme for the second Sunday of Advent is peace. The word peace shows up in two different verses in our lectionary scriptures. Once in the Epistle, 2 Peter 3:14-15a, as we heard and also in the psalm, number 85, verse 8 "I will listen to what the Lord God is saying, * for he is speaking peace to his faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to him." There are so many conflicts going on in the world. In the news a couple make the headlines in any week, yet still hundreds of conflict...

 “We seldom admit the seductive comfort of hopelessness. It saves us from ambiguity. It has an answer for every question: "There's just no point."; Hope, on the other hand, is messy. If it might all work out, then we have things to do. We must weather the possibility of happiness.” This was written on the former Twitter, by The CryptoNaturalist last July. (July 22, 2022, Twitter) This quote spoke to me about the reason hopelessness seems so easy in the face of so much in our world that seems so hard. In order to have hope, we have to be willing to change whereas hopelessness gives us an easy out. In August of 2017, the United States experienced what some media outlets called "the Great American Eclipse." It was a total solar eclipse that spanned fourteen different states, with a partial eclipse being visible from parts of Canada to parts of South America. I was traveling that day and remember pulling off the highway into a shopping mall to catch a glimpse of the...

I have had a reputation in my life for not sleeping. As a small child, I didn't sleep through the night and frequently kept my parents awake. As a kid at camp, not being a good sleeper, everyone thought that I just didn't sleep. Even through college and seminary, my friends joked that I must not be human because they had never seen me sleep. I have a hard time sleeping through noise, and people make a lot of noise. My husband continues this line of joking still today though he has managed to catch me asleep, though not often, because he falls asleep faster than I do and he can sleep through almost anything. In the Gospel passage this morning, we hear another parable from Jesus. And this one leaves us with a lot more questions instead of answers. In the stories and teachings before this parable in the arc of story from Matthew Jesus is on this theme of staying awake. Of course, we get to the parable of the bridesmaids and see all of them promptly fall asleep. Thankfully, I don...

 At the end of a ecumenical trip to Sweden in 2016, Pope Francis offered six new Beatitudes: ""Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others and forgive them from their heart. "Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized and show them their closeness. "Blessed are those who see God in every person and strive to make others also discover him. "Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home. "Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others. "Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians." "All these are messengers of God's mercy and tenderness," Pope Francis said.  "Surely they will receive from him their merited reward." The Beatitudes are so well known that even people in secular situations will occasionally use the format to offer their own blessings or to make their own poetic commentar...

I brought a special box with me today! Although, y'all have already heard Jesus' parable and I don't know... its not an easy parable to take out of the box. (though this parable is bursting out of this box...) In case you need to hear this up front, this sermon is not about answers. It is about questions. Here it comes. This box is the color of gold. Parables are even more valuable than gold. This box also looks like a present. Parables are presents. They were given to us before we were born and they are ours, even if we don't know what they mean. This box looks old. Parables are old. This box is closed. Parables sometimes seem closed to us. We need to keep coming back to them to see if they will open. Let's look inside. We have a king,  (crown) we have invitations (invitation card) we have a wedding banquet, (plastic food) we have servants/slaves (towel) we have people (wooden people figures) we have wedding clothes (wedding clothes) we have a man with no wedding c...

This isn't a scientific book about aging. It isn't a book about how to age well or what you should do as you are aging. It is a book about aging into who you want to be.  It is a book about looking into the mirror and seeing the smile on your face and light in your eyes. Karen Walrond guides us on the journey she took leading up to her year of aging anniversaries and milestones. She explains how she took the time and space in her life to reflect on what it means to age, to acknowledge and combat internalized ageism, and to figure out who she wanted to be as she grew older. She shares some research, tips, tricks, and lessons learned from professionals and elders in her life. As in her previous books, her conversational writing style, easy prose, and gift of storytelling makes this an interesting and engaging read. She offers thoughtful challenges to the 'normal' ways we think about age and what it means to grow older.  Karen Walrond doesn't take the reader on this jo...

 (sit down please in sign language) While I was in college a couple of my friends took American Sign Language to fulfill their humanities requirement. As in studying any language, they delighted in learning new words and culture. In particular, they greatly enjoyed one practice their teacher suggested for remembering vocabulary and learning how to put words together: sign singing. Singing in sign language relies heavily on expressive face and hand movement in order to differentiate it from regular speech. Quickly all of their ASL study sessions became in essence sign karaoke. They would get together and sing in ASL. It was a sight to behold. They were all sign singing the same songs together but they were also all very individualistic in their expressive style. In the passage from Philippians we heard this morning, we hear an interruption of Paul in his own writing. "At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow... every tongue confess him, King of Glory now..." This part of the...

'I saw a woman in the mirror in the lobby out of the corner of my eye and I registered her as a friend. It was only when I stopped to wave did I realize I was seeing myself.' I don't know where I heard this story,  but as someone who has struggled with self-love, it was a very attractive story. Could I have ever accidentally mistake myself for a friend? I hoped it could be true.  I spent years working on rebuilding my self love. Part of that was reclaiming how I looked, the clothes I wore, the way I did my hair, the feel of my body.   Do I have a great sense of fashion now?  No. Am I happier about what I wear and why and how I look?  Yes.  Am I always happy with those things?  No.  But I agree with Karen Williams.  We all look our best when we are excited and passionate about what we are doing.  When the inner joy shines forth so brightly that nothing else matters.  That is radiance. #RadiantRebellion

I love food.  The tastes, the smells, the experience of eating.  I even like gardening and the creation of food. The cooking and baking processes of making individual items into marvelous meals.  My digestive system has a much more complicated relationship with food. There are many things my digestive system overreacts to or feels the need to attack.  Over the years of trying to figure out what my digestive system will tolerate I've had to change my focus on eating for wellness  and learn to create the things I like with the ingredients my body also likes. Its not an immediate change in mindset. It takes time and energy and reminders. Because eating is such a communal experience, it has also taken community adjustment. Finding family and friends who will support my journey and focus on wellness.  I have found that my focus on wellness has been a little bit contagious.  As others have supported me in focusing on digestive wellness, others have been insp...

 "Way way back many centuries ago, not long after the Bible began Jacob lived in the land of Canaan, a fine example of a family man Jacob - Jacob and sons - depended on farming to earn their keep Jacob - Jacob and sons - spent all of their days in the fields with sheep Jacob was the founder of a whole new nation Thanks to the number of children he'd had He was also known as Israel, but most of the time His sons and his wives used to call him dad Jacob, Jacob and sons, men of the soil, of the sheaf and crook Jacob, Jacob and sons, a remarkable family in anyone's book Reuben was the eldest of the children of Israel With Simeon and Levi the next in line Napthali and Isaachar with Asher and Dan Zebulun and Gad took the total to nine Jacob, Jacob and sons, Benjamin and Judah, which leaves only one Jacob, Jacob and sons, Joseph -- Jacob's favorite son Jacob, Jacob and sons! When I was a child I learned the entire 1982 Broadway Musical recording of Joseph and the Technicolor ...

It is a party! Confetti, music, a disco ball, and a new book! Of course its a party. I'll see y'all later. #jointheradiantrebellion

  Girls are taught far too young to have problems with their age. Facial creams, hiding from the sun, not acknowledging our age, these practices deny the truth and our full lived experience.  (Okay, no one should spend too much time in the sun anyway) I'm in my mid-thirties and people are starting to comment on my new streaks of grey hair as if it was a problem. I'm also going to be considered a young person in the church for another ten years... Too young to lead or have a wise voice, so my relationship to ageism is complex. Grey hair is not the problem. Our cultural refusal to come to terms with the privilege of aging is a problem.  For someone who considered committing suicide earlier in my life, all my laugh lines, frown lines, and grey hairs are trophies. Trophies of days I didn't want live, but kept living. Joys and sorrows weathered.  I can't wait to read Karen Walrond's new book, Radiant Rebellion. I don't know what is in it, yet! I do know Karen will re...

 Make yourselves comfortable. I'm going to mention some hard and upsetting things today. If you're not in a mental place to be able to deal with hard or upsetting things today, please zone out for a little while. For all of you who normally write your grocery list during the sermon, the cherries were looking particularly good yesterday at the store. I'm going to talk about evil today. Evil is a fascinating subject. You might think that evil is not a particularly good theme for Labor Day weekend, however, Labor Day has its roots as a celebration of good overcoming evil. Labor Day is a celebration of workers. The Labor Day holiday was created after the union developments of better benefits, official work hours, and better company representation. Which all came after the exploitation of laborers and the Haymarket riot in Chicago before 1882. Unfortunately, despite Labor Day people are still exploited for their labor. People are still abused and bullied by companies, managers, ...