Sermons/Reflections

A Pigeon and God’s Presence

I scratch and crawl

through fatal attempts

at prayer perfection;

seeking the right words

and phrases to crack

the code of Divine Engagement.

But then, a glance

out the window –

the vibrant blue sky and

the awkwardly fluttering pigeon –

I found God

looking at me

deeply and desirously

with an audible hearty chuckle.

The pigeon landed on a telephone wire

and shit without shame

sure of its belonging and being.

And I laughed,

deeply and uproarously,

prayer punctuating the giggles

as I felt God’s gentle caress

to not take myself

too seriously.

But to rest in the seriousness of

God’s love and desire

for me; in my

most basic needs and desires,

without shame,

as with the bumbling and shitting pigeon,

God is present with me.

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What is ‘Basebuilding?’

Basebuilding:

Foundations built on faith, conviction, and justice.

Collaboration with community, church,

ancestors, prophets,

and future generations.

Unique in poetic and prophetic imagination

speaking and doing

an alternative narrative and

story into being.

Renouncing and denouncing

the narrative and

story of domination and supremacy

through a communal vision,

achievable and concrete,

grassroots grown,

in our ecclesial spaces

and beyond

for the queering and decolonizing

and expanding

and including

of Beloved Community.

Basebuilding:

Intentional connections and relationships,

with imagination,

as power

and wholistic transformation

for the well-being

of all people and creation.

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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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