A Positively Poetic Priest

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing; Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany BCP 216) "For the fourth year in a row, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that tracks hate groups, reports that hate and domestic extremism are rising in an unabated trend. The center found a 30 percent increase in U.S. hate groups over the past four years and a 7 percent increase in hate groups in 2018 alone, according to the center's annual "Year in Hate and Extremism" report. The group designated 1,020 organizations as hate groups in 2018, a high of at least 20 years." (https://www.npr.org/2019/02/20/69...

In Chapter 1, Sara Miles, the author, begins the book by sharing how she was raised and what she learned from her parents about religion. Both sets of her grandparents had been missionaries and their zeal had turned their children off religion. Her mother tells her the story of why she left Christianity as a child and recalls what she disliked the most.  "" I hated the 'You have to be good because God says so,' " recalled my mother. "I hated being preached at. Everything was about guilt."" (page 7) What are the parts about religion or Christianity you dislike the most?