Poems & Musings

Multiplicity

I used to think I was alone here within myself alone in my struggle to be who I thought I ought to be . . .

Shitty Shame

Shame is shit From toddlerhood we are taught to hold it, control it, to flush it into oblivion Yet, try as we might we are never free of it . . .

Labyrinth Song

How can I walk unhurried through the buzz-clang-flash of a pinball world Take a calming breath in anger’s face and spy the fear beneath Be the steady rainbow over someone’s troubled waters . . .

Jesus and the Rejected, a Poem

Those who look down on others God has regarded with disfavor,But Christ has inhabited the brown skin of the oppressed.Those who assume their right to rule,God will pull out the rug from under them,And the people of the earth will eat at the table as family.Those who use scripture to keep others in subservience,God shines…

Jesus and the Peacemakers

Evangelicalism, stemming from the First Great Awakening in American colonial times (think Jonathan Edwards and Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God) and various holiness movements, has always promoted a view of people in black-and-white terms, i.e., Us and Them. The whole point of the gospel, the good news, in evangelical thinking, is to…

Jesus and the Pure in Heart

In Matthew 5:8, Jesus gives what I suspect is the loftiest, most mysterious, and least attainable of all his beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” And yet, in its very simplicity is the key to everything. It’s the key that allows us to transcend a religion of rules and…

Jesus and the Merciful

The young woman stands, white-faced, before a shouting crowd. She is naked but for a bedsheet clutched around herself. Some of the men’s eyes travel hungrily up and down her body, leering and smirking slyly. . .

Jesus and the Famished

Have you ever experienced real hunger? I don’t mean our everyday tummy cravings, which we usually manage to satisfy within hours, if not minutes. I mean hungry to the point that finding food becomes an obsession, and you can’t think of anything else? . . .

Jesus and the Humble

When I was a young teenager, my single mom didn’t have a car, so we would walk to church. It was a long walk in our Sunday clothes, through neighborhoods without sidewalks, where we had to be prepared to throw pinecones at dogs that ran towards us, barking and snarling and trying to bite our…

Jesus and the Brokenhearted

Now, here’s a Beatitude that can come out sounding pretty convoluted, We’re used to thinking of “blessed” as meaning holy, as in Blessed Mary, or rewarded, as in “God bless you for your help” . . .

Distracted by Beauty

Sometimes it splashes you in the face brazen and breathtaking as ice cold water But how many more moments slip by unnoticed (for she rarely raises her voice) . . .

A Heart Story

My heart’s wound is an old old story / It chatters in the background day and night . . .

Where the River Will Go

Quit trying to corral the river to slow it down or to touch every drop or to steer it away from the danger of the waterfall . . .

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