Rogue Reverend

Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining Into the World

If the gods bring to you
a strange and frightening creature,
accept the gift
as if it were one you had chosen.

Say the accustomed prayers,
oil the hooves well,
caress the small ears with praise.

Have the new halter of woven silver
embedded with jewels.
Spare no expense, pay what is asked,
when a gift arrives from the sea.

Treat it as you yourself
would be treated,
brought speechless and naked
into the court of a king.

And when the request finally comes,
do not hesitate even an instant—

Stroke the white throat,
the heavy, trembling dewlaps
you’d come to believe were yours,
and plunge.

Not once
did you enter the pasture
without pause,
without yourself trembling.
That you came to love it, that was the gift.

Let the envious gods take back what they can.

Jane Hirshfield
first published in Five Points, vol. II, no. 1, Fall 1997
also from The Lives of the Heart

I ♥ the Holy Spirit

“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience!” ~ Emily Dickinson

Most of you, by now, know that Pentecost is my favorite day in the Christian year. There’s about reasons why I love it, not the least of is that it’s really the birthday of the Church. Another reason? I love the story, and the visual of tongues of fire and people speaking in tongues.

But mostly I love it because it’s an encounter with the Holy Spirit. More »

They Talk About Salvation

Texts: Acts 4:5-12 and George Herbert’s poem, The Pulley

WHEN God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by ;
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can :
Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

A friend had a speaking engagement recently. In one part of the group learning experience, my friend asked the participants to introduce themselves, telling three wonderful qualities about themselves. As one participant went to answer, she gave two wonderful qualities, then said, “Ummm. Ummmm. Ummmm.” After three minutes, the leader finally called time. The participant could only came up with two good qualities.

So, do you have three qualities? What are they? I don’t want you to say them outloud, but I do want you to think of three of them. Raise your hand when you’ve come up with them, and then I’ll continue.

More »

Shower Ingenuity

I get my best ideas in the shower. It’s true! I write nearly all of my sermons and blog posts there. I figure out where I’m going with them, outline them, then get out of the shower and try to remember my genius thoughts. Most of the time, I can only approximate the genius that I create in the shower.

Rest assured, though, that this post wasn’t written in the shower. Hence, the lack of brilliance.

In order to capture the creativity of the cleansing, I bought tub crayons today. Crayola TaDoodles Washable Crayons at that.

TaDoodles!

I’ve decided this evening (in the steamy shower, of course) that I’m going to post some of my notes from the shower. This evening’s notes look like this:

Reasons to REJECT Xty (that’s Christianity)

Spiritual Emotional Intellectual
Manipulation Family Violence
Experience Violence and Disconnect Make Sense?

Ultimately, what does it say about:
God
Humanity
Self

Obviously, I didn’t come to any conclusions about anything, but this is the beginning of my next sermon, to be preached on Palm/Passion Sunday. It’s just the beginning of the conversation.

My friend John Morse, one of the editors of the Birmingham Wiki page, teased me, saying, “Have you considered that it’s the absence of things like crayons that make the shower conducive to reflection?”

Well, the crayons wash off. Thank goodness.

What’s So Wrong About Suffering?

A lot of my Lenten thinking has been about suffering. A little of that is because I am looking at my friends, my colleagues, and my congregants who are suffering. It’s never easy. We want to push through it quickly, and get to the other side.

Thomas Merton wrote, in the Seven Storey Mountain:

Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt.

We try to avoid suffering in so many ways: through pretending, through stuffing, through avoiding, through ducking. Why does it have to be so hard?

Our theology pushes us to think that suffering is unnatural, and unwanted, too. Can a Christian theology accept suffering?

Stay tuned…