Love it or Leave it?

Love it for its moral promise. That brave and bold Declaration, the establishment clause, the Emancipation Proclamation, Fireworks and Juneteenth, its Jazz and sweet Appalachian rhythms, its Steinbecks and its Morrisons and all its poets, even the bad ones, its Memphis barbecue and California almond farms. Land-grant Universities that dot the rural midwest. Letter from […]

A Prayer For Peace in the Face Of Hatred

Originally Offered at a Public Meeting of the Council Against Hate Chattanooga, TN June 15, 2019 We are a Many-voiced crowd People of Faith and People whose faith is in humanity. Sometimes we are both. Some days we are neither. We come together for the sake of wholeness in a world so often fragmented to […]

Old Men At The Funeral Home

They are all veterans, they will proudly tell you Mainly Korea now. The last World War II guy finally retired, what, a decade ago? Some are retired preachers; there’s one who won’t tell you that he is an ex-preacher, not a retired one. Too many secretaries, too many times. He once drove 500 miles to […]

Blood Libel

A Quick Word on Anti-Semitism and Biblical Interpretation Because my friend, Biblical Scholar Par Excellence Eric Smith mentioned it, I found and read the “Manifesto” currently being attributed to John Earnest, the man accused of opening fire at Poway Chabad Synagogue in San Diego yesterday, killing one and injuring several others, including the congregation’s rabbi. […]

Holy Saturday

A right holiday only for a pagan heathen or heretic. A day set aside for the silence of God. silence or death, depending. Either way, a day for the old man to leave you the hell alone. Not even a real rain shower, just fits and starts The rending done, the watch abandoned, it’s quiet […]

Invocation

Voice 1: We come together tonight because the city where we live matters. We love this city. We love its people. And we come together tonight because our words matter. Our shared moral traditions And our particular stories and teachings Teach us that words are powerful while offering such words to affirm the unique beauty […]

Holy Iowa

You came up behind me as quiet as death, Iowa. White-haired pilgrim Chrysler death with your hanging clothes stretched across your backseat because who likes wrinkled button-up shirts with button-down collars; who wants to iron blouses on the road, Snow bird? Who wants anything to stand in the way of getting to grandkids, granddogs, the […]