miltybc

[miltybc]

lenten journal: ice age

ice age if you have to go out in winter ice is not your friend whether the white ridges or the translucent layer disguised as asphalt ice will take you down maybe that’s what they had in mind when it became the acronym for those who knock down doors and scour streets scraping people into oblivion it chills me to think that evil appreciates metaphor freezes me in my tracks to watch the hail of…

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lenten journal: mirror image

mirror image what is it about grief and loss that makes life feel as if the clouded glass through which we gaze carries the same caution as the passenger-side mirror: “objects may be closer than they appear” the old songs sing of crossing rivers and farther shores, of flying away like a bird freed from prison bars but life is so much more than a sentence we are meant for more than an escape as…

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lenten journal: living among the dead

living among the dead one church member stood during prayer time to mark five years since his wife died at coffee hour another said next Sunday will be two years since her husband died when I checked email I saw a request to help with a burial of who died last night and then at lunch Ginger told me that my spiritual director had died in her sleep those are just the ones I heard about today no…

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lenten journal: holy weak

holy weak 1. Jesus rode into town on a borrowed donkey not wanting to be king. we have a president who thinks he’s a king and is demanding a parade. one is not like the other. 2. to equate criticizing Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza with being antisemitic is the same as saying criticizing Trump for his actions is being anti-American. why are we scared to say so? 3. the divider-in-chief…

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lenten journal: rage room

rage room I was in a different city a few weeks back and saw a rage room a shop that invited you to come in a break things through the open door we saw drop cloths and a stack of sledgehammers as well as sheets of glass plates cusp and televisions stuff that would shatter once you paid your money you put on the coveralls and safety googles grabbed a hammer and started swinging as though…

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lenten journal: remember this

remember this this grab for power is an act of desperation it may seem measured calculated deliberate but look in their eyes and you can see fear behind all of the greed the damage is real but their frantic grasp for permanence is not nobody lasts forever despot or democrat history forgets us all we grieve and we leave we matter as matter as parts of the whole love handed down from one age to the…

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lenten journal: who counts

I preached about the prodigal son—well, mostly the older brother—today, a week late by the Lectionary Clock, but it felt like the right time to me. _________________________ Though we didn’t go back and read the verses that begin Luke 15 when Bev read our scripture, I want to do that now to remind us of the context for Jesus telling the three parables about being lost and found: Now the tax…

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lenten journal: gathering

gathering tomorrow two groups will gather on opposite ends or our town green the first will be a funeral for a gentle man who loved people and their pets well the second will be a rally of solidarity in the wake of all that is being destroyed in both cases we will gather not fully knowing why other than it matters the dead will not rise our grief will not end nothing will be solved and we won’t…

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lenten journal: honest answer

honest answer one of the traditions that comes with aging is most every nurse who checks me in for an appointment, no matter the doctor or the reason, asks “Do you feel safe at home?” the question is a part of a perfunctory list quickly-asked queries with expected answers they will expect to hear again next week when I go for a final follow-up for my implant surgery they ask the questions the way…

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lenten journal: striking out

striking out (Monday, March 31, 5:17 pm EDT) I don’t think I’ve ever written a poem in real time by that I mean when the subject is still in process but its the top of the ninth in the Red Sox’ fifth game of this young season and Rafael Devers has done nothing but strike out the bat we know we can count on to come through is zero for nineteen by now I’m sure he is way beyond second guessing his…

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lenten journal: finders keepers

The lectionary passage this week is the parable of the prodigal son, but I’m going to wait a week on that because I was captured by the two stories that precede it in Luke’s gospel. _______________________ Before Jesus began telling parables about banquets, Luke told us he was at the home of one of the religious elites for a banquet. In our reading for today, Luke says Jesus was hanging out with…

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lenten journal: spectator sport

spectator sport It has only been a hundred years since we began to see a spectator as one detached from their subject for many centuries to observe meant to watch and behold you didn’t have to be on the field to attach to what was going on which makes me want to claim the title of baseball beholder as hope springs eternal and a fresh season blooms before us I’ve listened to John Fogerty and Steve…

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lenten journal: walking the aisles

walking the aisles as one who is hearing impaired I have lost the ability to hear the background music that plays in the supermarket as I wander about sans soundtrack picking up pickles tortillas and yogurt to name a few things all the while weaving in and out of others I’m not sure anyone is really listening as we dance down aisles designed to be small to make room for more I’m a day at a…

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lenten journal: progress report

progress report it’s been about two months since I tried to put words to learning to live with after market material tucked under the skin on the side of my skull I am learning to navigate dueling Bluetooths (Blueteeth?) each ear competing to host incoming sounds and then there’s the hole in my eardrum a remnant of arepair that has not fully healed and sends a small screech through my brain when…

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lenten journal: something other than outrage

My sermon this week came from the last part of Luke 14, where Jesus keeps telling parables at banquets that speak to larger things. I know these stories, but had never seen what they have to say about anger. _______________________ Today’s sermon is one of those that could use a recap like those that come up when you’re watching a limited series on television: “Previously on Whatever . . .” and…

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lenten journal: healing from hunger

In Luke 14, Jesus tells two stories about banquets while he is attending one—and then heals someone to boot. My sermon looked at the first parable; the second one comes next Sunday. __________________________ Have you ever noticed that Jesus went to a lot of parties? Throughout the gospels, as much as there are stories about Jesus preaching and teaching, helping and healing, we also find him at…

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lenten journal: table talk

table talk we sat around tables in the church basement we call fellowship hall sharing a potluck supper that turned out to be an abundance of bread on the table were sheets holding definitions of theologies of communion our topic for the night we read the paragraphs and then we told stories sharing a meal the whole time we talked about what it meant to belong which had less to do with the -ations…