A Positively Poetic Priest

 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...