A Positively Poetic Priest

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Third Sunday in Lent BCP 218) Giving up our lives is a hard thing to do. Christianity asks us to give up our lives in service to Christ and in letting go of our egos through Christ. The world lures us in all sorts of ways to hold on desperately to our lives, as if we had the power to save ourselves. We don't. We know it when we are being honest with ourselves. But lets face it, its really easy not to be honest with ourselves. One of the best ways we can practice giving up ourselves is by the spiritual practices we do on our own and in community. Spiritual practices of prayer, giving, fa...

what would I give to stop the flow                                the                                drip                                the                               loss                                 of life                                 of                                love                                 of         ...

The Third Sunday of Advent One of the many museums I have been to in my life is the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas. Before I started my last job in Houston, I spent a week setting up my apartment and trying to get to know the city a little bit. I had plenty of expectations about what moving to Texas was going to be like, but part of that first week, I was trying to figure out if those expectations were correct or not. The Museum district in Houston has plenty of museums to choose from and I wandered in and out of a number of them. In the Contemporary Arts Museum though is where I started to realize that many of my expectations were going to be broken, had to be let go of. In its halls were a dizzying array of abstract art compilations, pieces made out of trash, graffiti type works, and a number of things that I stared at, simply wondering what I was looking at. I’m still not sure I understand all of what I saw that day. We all move through our lives with plenty of...