Month: February 2021

Sin [Inspired by George Herbert’s ‘Sinne’]

Familial God, you have formed us in a world of care,
parents grow us, teachers educate us,
the law directs us, the world defines us.
We become fixed in binding rules and expectations
of who we are and who we can become.
The Church and its members are tasked
with disrupting this terrifying trap.
But all too often, the ecclesial body
becomes a co-conspirator in the maintenance
of power and domination.
When we gather to worship and praise,
interpret and learn God’s love in scripture,
and sharpen our skills of discernment and justice,
God can operate world transformation through us.
But when we cast our cares and sites on
the power and principalities, and privileges,
of the world, we sin against the divine purpose
of Love that God has tasked us with.
Sin is the alignment with power and domination.
Alignment with God casts out all sin.
May we evermore align with God’s Love.
Amen.

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God’s Love [Inspired by Thomas Aquinas’ ‘God’s Nature’]

When a social claim
is absolute about God
it is probably a deception.

We must test this claim
with the Truth of God’s Love.

Does the claim bear the fruits of Love?

God is love
and the fruits of Love
include and challenge
are abundant and generously given
uplift and make whole.

If the claim demonizes or terrorizes
harms or scares
excludes or makes scarce
it is antithetical to Christ
and God’s Love.

Resist.

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Jesus: Our Incarnate Sibling

Jesus,

our incarnate sibling,

you understand basic human needs.

You required water,

nutritional nourishment,

and a warm place to lay your head:

all the things that we, too, require.

In this time of celebrating

our essential workers

and healthcare providers,

who supply basic needs to so many,

we pray for their protection and strength.

They are embodied representations

of your Divine love.

Send your Angels of love, power, and wisdom;

wrap us in your physician’s care.

Because without you –

without our basic needs met –

we will suffer, weep, and perish.

Lord, in your mercy.

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We are Told to Wait

God of promises.

Sometimes we are told to wait –

be patient –

for the arc of the moral universe

bends toward justice.

So we wait,

enduring the injustices and despair

with hope.

And we suffer

while we hope.

But hope demands action.

Waiting is a verb.

Hope is an action.

Patience is a long-term game.

We, in the power of the Spirit,

bend the world toward justice,

because God is hope

and justice –

even amidst doubt.

Sometimes we are told to wait –

but we are the bending

of the moral universe’s arc

toward justice.

God’s promises.

We are the verb –

we act.

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Prologue

“Poetic Imagination is the last way left in which to challenge and conflict the dominant reality” (Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 40).

Brueggemann’s words ring true across history, but particularly in our current reality. Our dominant reality is one of division, strife, truthiness, and extremism. And in the public sphere, Christianity has often been co-opted by that dominant reality as a mechanism for power, order, and sanitization. As a result, Christian poetic imagination must speak truth to the oppressive dominant reality by re-imagining something different, through the power of the creative and creating Holy Spirit. As Christians, we must create alternative narratives to the single story of public Christianity that conservative politics has monopolized.

This blog is a personal and public space for poetic imagination and resistance, creative creation as spiritual practice, and mutual conversation. Please join me in imagining an alternative future, through poetry and other creative practices, toward a world evermore reflective of Christ’s gospel mission proclaimed in Luke 4:18-19:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (NRSV).

Amen.

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