A Positively Poetic Priest

If you have Netflix, you know a few months ago "Tidying up with Marie Kondo" became a huge hit. So much so, people started using her name as a verb on Facebook. People reported their adventures cleaning out their homes, I saw posts such as this: "I'm Marie Kondo-ing my closet and found this!" with a picture of them holding up some long lost ridiculous Halloween costume they still had or something similar. Of course, my Facebook feed also immediately erupted  with scores of priests, ministers, and pastors  saying they would never be able to only own 30 books at a time. The whole idea which Marie Kondo proposes  is that cleaning up,  and cleaning out, paring down the possessions you have, leads to a more joy-filled life. This idea is not a new one. Or really a surprising one. When our lives start to feel too cluttered, when we have too many possessions we have to take care of, we start to lose our joy in living, our...

wrapped in ragged cotton used to be some mother's pride a shirt, a second pair of shoes concealed as precious treasure what would you carry with you no home to lay your head jewels or tools, art or comforts all you could manage in a bag consider well the proposition we are all homeless in our beds waiting for life's greatest venture to take us home for eternal rest 1/5/18

"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...