A Positively Poetic Priest

it is an active passivity the book lying there waiting for the reader to return held in time the story waits you wrap your arms around me the world moves on while I participate in eternity held outside of time the real story continues 6/6/17

Someone on the Internet is Wrong! Almost every conceivable opinion has been voiced on the internet. The internet has become like many other things in our lives, useful for both positive and negative uses, a tool in abuse and a tool in great educational and emotional triumph. Some churches have found themselves pushing back against the idea of using social media to share the Gospel proclamation. Other churches embrace social media as a medium through which new people can be reached. After all, there aren't that many people left without some kind of social media account. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Skype, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Tumblr...   there is a social media site for everyone. Some people aren't against using social media for church business, but are definitely against using social media in church! How can the community worship while people are distracted with their phones? However, we can argue, no matter what, people are going to get distracte...

In the gospel of Mark The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ Starts before Jesus is even on the scene. It starts with Isaiah... It starts with the prophets! Isaiah being the representative And then we get John. The crazy evangelist. Luckily we don't all have to wear camels hair and leather And eat honey and locusts. Though I thought about bringing some in for coffee hour this week... Any story really begins back before the main character Many times I've heard people tell their life stories by beginning with their parents or grandparents, because what comes before us makes a huge impact on who we are and what we do. Personally I know the truth of this in my own story My parents' stories have impacted my life in so many ways. I am named after my mother's mother, Sharon, who died in a car accident long before I was born. Yet, her name, her legacy, and her death, all impacted how I was raised and who I am today. So...

During her time in college, Sara Miles found herself in the midst of the war zone in Central America.  "It turned out that gunfire had a way of focusing my attention. And that I cared, passionately, about knowing the difference between the official story and physical reality." (pg 13) This is something that is becoming questionable in our society, what is the physical reality of a situation? No matter how we look at something we always bring our context, our baggage and our perceptions into the story. Any story can be looked at in a myriad of ways and in a world where people can tell those stories for a wide audience, the language used, the nuances, can be very important to understanding the story being told. What is the physical reality of our lives? What are the stories we tell ourselves? How much of a gap is there between the two?

The First Sunday After Christmas John 1:1-18 Eternal God, we thank you this day for blessing us with your presence through Jesus your Son; help us to accept the assurance you offer us of your presence and love throughout our entire lives. Amen. I love the beginning of the gospel according to John, the gospel passage for this morning. It is so beautiful and many layered. In seminary, when we studied John's gospel, we learned that John’s gospel always has many layers going on. (Like a cake, or an onion.) No passage is simply about one thing. We had a hand gesture we used any time we talked about John’s gospel. (Hand gesture. A little John's gospel dance.) In looking at the gospel passage this morning, we have to keep this many layered approach in mind. We are going to start behind the scenes of what we have heard this morning. Two of the great literary devices of storytelling and character development are birth narratives and foreshadowing, and the two almost always ...

Eternal God, who calls to us through all the little things, help us to be sharers of your story, help us to follow and share bread crumb trails that point to you, through your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Last fall, at our Parish Retreat, we had an activity called the Glow in the Dark Night Hike. I attached glow sticks to the trees and bushes along a circular path near our camp, so that our families could walk in the quiet darkness by following the glow sticks. In society, we have a way of describing this kind of path. Bread crumb trails. The trail is a guide to follow and every little marker is a moment along the way. It comes from the story of Hansel and Gretel. Once upon a time…the story begins, there were two children named Hansel and Gretel. While their fairy tale is rather grim, the pair is famous for their bread crumb trail. They leave a crumb trail for themselves so that they can find their way home as they wander in the woods. The bread crumb path doesn'...