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 […]

An Ash Wednesday Prayer 2019

Holy One You breathe life into us Whispering it, a holy wish that births us into reality. the words we speak and lives we build reminding us We are not made only of holy breath, but of dust of the same grit that you turn into pottery of the same grit we scrub off our […]

For Mary Oliver

I put my trust in cities Brick and glass and window washer, each climbing like a sort of secular ivy aching angularly, always arcing heavenward. Tonight I am wearing boots my wife bought for me, on a train quiet enough for me to hear my own whispers because everyone who is usually here has […]

Dumpster Fire: A Parable

This will not be the year I thought last year shouldn’t have been he said he could hear the heart-ruminations beating against her temple from the inside out. I will walk more, march more, sell more, buy less, build more, meme less, write more. I will tear down, build up, use up, reduce, reuse, resist, […]

Borders

I. They fought like hell over that border, I’m told. The Tigers and the Free Staters Hating each other to death, shoot on sight. These days, you can find the rumpled shirts and smoke stained fingers of their aging children nubbing down the old wooden pencils, playing KENO at the Twin Cities Tavern. You cross […]

Saint Stephen’s Cathedral: An All Saints Day Photo Essay.

In the shadows of tall buildings Of fallen angels on the ceilings Oily feathers in bronze and concrete Faded colors, pieces left incomplete. –“Cathedrals,” Jump Little Children I fell in love with Stephensdom, Saint Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, today. Here are some photos to show you why.