A Positively Poetic Priest

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 12 BCP 231) God is our protector. God protects us from evil in this world. However, God does not protect us from the consequences of our own mistakes, our own failures of justice or relationship. God will protect us from the real power of death, but God will not stop us from all the little deaths which lead us to greater life in Christ. God is our protector, and will always protect us from true evil, but God will not protect us from our own freedom of choice. God gave us free will as a gift after all! After the last few years learning ever more about the inequality of different people in our county, my understanding...

Trinity Sunday tends to be a day for an opaque sermon. I acknowledge and claim that.  However, I have no plans on trying and failing to explain the Trinity to you today. God is one in three and I believe that. And many of you have sat through many confusing sermons on the subject. So today I am going to speak about a different confusing topic just to mix it up a little. I'm going to talk about the passage from Isaiah today and our struggle as sinners AND beloved children of God to speak out against evil in this world. This passage from Isaiah  is usually known as Isaiah's call story, though it is not the first passage from the book of Isaiah. However, what is actually happening in this passage is Isaiah getting spiritually ready to get involved in and fight the spiritual forces of wickedness  going on in the world around him. See, at the time Isaiah had this experience of God, the Northern Kingdom of Israel  and the So...

Vocation calling Clear as the bell on an old fashioned telephone  calling Where connection grasps you breathless calling No escape and none wanted, willingly vanquished calling Into places words cannot express calling Following an unrelenting flashing deer calling Through yearning miles of rugged mountain scapes  calling While lying in bed at home awake calling Listening to the rain water your unquenched thirst calling Vocation