The text is darker in this weather, more emphatic, as though while he wrote, outside prison walls Saint Paul saw the fall of some Ephesian rain-drops and thought: If my plea should fall on hard soil… Did he see the runaway slave in the wet, uncertain, standing at his master’s door,Continue reading “Rainy Day Sermon”
Tag Archives: grace
Thirty-Two Blessings
Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love. (Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved) That I am begotten by love, Sustained That my heart beats And my feet move That the air is rich For me to breathe That love is patient, That love is kind That I can know What goodness is That IContinue reading “Thirty-Two Blessings”
Debt
Acknowledgment sounds with our morning yawn: We have been in need; we have been held safe. And the quiet of the dawn routine declares That we are weak, are strangers to this day. Awaken slowly. Infants in the world, What will you do now? Fresh from the night’s grace, Will you shake your horn’s fistContinue reading “Debt”
Quo Vadis?
We could not see the top of this wall – but now that we’ve scaled it, what lies before? A dream of tomorrow? A promise of now? The moment is furrowed on destiny’s brow. No sureness of footing, yet held for the fall; the wall is beneath us – what now?
Grace, charm, a clenched jaw
If what Christians believe is true, then Gide knows now what all of us will know before long. What is it that he knows? What is it that he sees? (Francois Mauriac, “The Death of Andre Gide”) Was it better by far to be wily, in the end? Maintaining to the last where Montaigne hadContinue reading “Grace, charm, a clenched jaw”
Tom and Bertie
Once the marriage was destroyed* did the one take comfort in the other’s halitosis? And did the other, foul in breath, seek scum to prove that folly persists in churches and in the minds of worshippers? If words are crude and language imprecise, then actions like his speak loudest: a moral compass cast aside withContinue reading “Tom and Bertie”
Hidden Grace
Senseless acts of beauty went unnoticed as the runners ran and golfers golfed and my head span. Full of self I stormed upon the beaten earth and missed the shades of microscopic brown and green, the flower hidden in the leaves, the pounding in the runner’s ears, the grace which binds me to these yearsContinue reading “Hidden Grace”
Catechism 52
What hope does everlasting life hold for us? It reminds us that this present fallen world is not all there is; soon we will live with and enjoy God forever in the new city, in the new heaven and the new earth, where we will be fully and forever freed from all sin and will inhabit renewed, resurrection bodies in a renewed, restored creation.Continue reading “Catechism 52”
10 Ways to Embrace the Ring Road
Embrace it. No other time of day can you sit still, without compunction. Here schedules mean nothing. You may be late; that cannot be stopped. Yet you can stop. You can look at clumps of grass and broccoli gums in wetlands and wonder how they looked before this road was even thought. You can watchContinue reading “10 Ways to Embrace the Ring Road”
Redeem the Commute
Keilor-bound at the wheel, a man plucks his middle brow over the hill. Trucks speak in whistling brakes; cars speak in blinkers; billboards speak in covered-up breaths and we, doubting ourselves, tremble forth. Across gorges and bridges, organ-pipes hum in the silent chorale of a wasted commute. Gold glints through gum-trees; grace glints in mirrors.Continue reading “Redeem the Commute”
The Consolations of Writing 