writing | Michael Valliant

You are witnesses of these things

Background: At the healing service on Wednesday, April 10 and for the Zoom prayer service and discussion on Sunday, this is the text/basis for a homily and discussion we had on Luke 24:36b-48, where Jesus appears to the disciples for the first time after his Resurrection, per Luke’s account. (artwork: “Jesus’ Appearance While the Apostles are at Table,” by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319))

“You are witnesses of these things.”

Today’s reading gives us Luke’s version of a story similar to what we heard from John’s Gospel last week. The disciples are gathered in a room and Jesus appears to them. In the course of their encounter, they go from being terrified and afraid, thinking they are seeing a ghost, to being witnesses, inspired and charged up to share their testimony.

How does this change happen?

Does Jesus make some rousing speech? Does he scientifically explain what happened to him?

He gives them his body. He says “look at my hands and feet. Touch me and see. That’s a line I want to let sink in for a bit.

Over the different Gospels we have heard Jesus say, “Follow me” and “Come and see,” now this is the most personal, most intimate invitation he could give, “Touch me and see.”

They are starting to come around, still not sure about all this—they know he died, there is no way this can be… Jesus looks around and says, “Got anything to eat?” And then eats fish to show them he’s legit.

I love the encounters with the risen Jesus in Luke—this story and the Road to Emmaus—there is a light-heartedness about Jesus, there is humor even in the serious work that he is there to do.

In light of the Resurrection, everything takes on new meaning. In the Road to Emmaus story, it’s just two disciples walking and Jesus comes upon them, and they walk and talk and he teaches them and then breaks bread with them, and their lives and hearts are changed. In a way that didn’t happen before. Things are different.

In today’s reading, for the disciples it is conversation, it is Jesus’s bodily presence, it is teaching, all things they have experienced before, but this is different. This changes everything.

I want to ask a question here and see what you think. Why does Jesus come back to his disciples? What’s his purpose in appearing to them and spending time with them?

To fulfill his mission; to do what he said he was going to do. To show them he is who he said he was; to show them that love conquers death.

It’s also this: to give them living and credible proof. To help them take the next step in their learning.

He is going to ascend and it is going to be up to them. His life, his love, his teaching, he is placing it in their hands to pass on to others.

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,” … he goes back over what he told them before he was killed, but it all has a new significance; it means something different now.

Then he opens their mind to understand the Scriptures. Wow, that would be a lovely gift, wouldn’t it? Hey, Jesus, what does this mean? How do I make sense out of this? Like a phone-a-friend lifeline to Jesus.

In coming back, in appearing to the disciples, in teaching them, and being with them, in them touching him, Jesus says:

“You are witnesses of these things.”

If the disciples aren’t credible witnesses, it will never work. If they don’t believe, if they aren’t convinced and convicted, how will anyone else come to believe?

But not just credible witnesses, they have to be fired up, they have to be motivated, they have to want nothing more than to share their testimony, to share the good news. It has to be part of their core purpose.

Imagine if after Jesus leaves, the disciples are sitting on this amazing, life-giving story that can change the world, and they decide, “Okay, well, we’ve got this church here, a house church, and if anyone new comes in, we’ll tell them. That’s what it means to be a disciple, right—that we proclaim the word within the walls of our specific church, we celebrate Communion, we pray for others, and Jesus is happy, right?”

Jesus knows his work, his purpose, his life, his love for us hangs on the disciples becoming apostles—being sent out to spread the good news. So he supercharges them, gives them everything they need to succeed, including the Holy Spirit (that comes in Luke, Part II, Acts).

Let’s look at how Jesus gives them what they need in this story. He doesn’t come in and say, “Great to see you guys, would you please pick up your Bibles and turn to page 42 for today’s lesson.”

He shows them his scars, he says, “touch me and see,” he eats with them. He is vulnerable, intimate, and authentic. Explaining Scripture doesn’t come until later.

I love this quote from Debie Thomas in the book we studied last year, “Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories.” She says:

“Maybe when the world looks at us to see if OUR faith is authentic and trustworthy, it needs to see our scars and hungers, too. Our vulnerability, not our immunity. Our honesty, not our pretenses to perfection. What would it look like for us to offer our stories of scars and graces, hungers, and feasts, in testimony to this world? How might our embodied lives become a way of love? Naming our hungers, widening our tables, sharing our scars and our feasts—what if THIS is practicing resurrection? Maybe more is at stake in a piece of fish, or a glass of water, or a loaf of bread, than we have imagined.”

Another question I want to ask you, and if it is something you feel like you have an answer for or want to talk about, wonderful, if not, ponder it over the week:

What is YOUR witness?

What is it from your life, your scars, your hunger, your passions, your relationships that might speak to others?

We are all different witnesses. The good news is the good news, but we connect to it in different ways, and we connect to other people in different ways. My witness, my testimony, is different than yours.

Part of this whole line of thinking came to me yesterday while I was skateboarding. I had been sitting at my desk for the afternoon, I needed to go to the grocery store, and there is a paved trail down next to Easton Point that goes across Papermill Pond, right on the way to Harris Teeter or Target. I wanted to stretch my legs.

And I got to thinking that the joy that I get from cruising on a skateboard, a joy I found when I was 13 and almost 40 years later is still there, is part of my witness. Writing is part of my witness. Discussing the Bible, laughing, asking questions, building friendships while wondering about Scripture, is part of my witness. Sitting outside in nature and feeling like a part of Creation is a part of my witness.

What things are a part of yours?

I want to mention one more aspect to this Resurrection story. Jesus is changed. The disciples are changed. Something has happened, they have received something from Jesus that has made them witnesses.

What is it and how can it help our witness? This is how Debie Thomas puts it:

“The resurrection is not a platitude or a line in a creed. The resurrection is fire in our bones, steel in our blood, impetus for our feet, a song of lamentation, protest, and ferocious hope for our souls. The resurrection is God’s insistence that we speak, stand, and work for life in a world desperate for fewer crosses, fewer graves, fewer landscapes littered with the desolate and the dead.”

This is the season of the Resurrection. This is the Easter season of new life. That power and love and energy is for us, it is supposed to be a part of our witness. Is it a part of yours?

Doubt and Faith

Background: This past weekend (April 6-7) was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. The lectionary Gospel reading was John 20:19-31, which is popularly referred to as the “Doubting Thomas” story. I also preached on this passage last year and wanted to make sure to take it in a new direction. I am grateful especially to Debie Thomas and her book, “A Faith of Many Rooms,” which is quoted and referred to.

“Doubt and Faith“

It’s today’s reading where our friend Thomas earns the nickname that history and culture gave him: “Doubting Thomas.” And we are told not to be a Doubting Thomas.

I want to discuss whether doubt is a bad thing and whether in Thomas’s shoes, any of us might not do the same thing.

This is not the first time we meet Thomas in John’s Gospel. The first story he is a part of is the raising of Lazarus.

Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus that their brother Lazarus is sick, hoping that Jesus will come to heal him. Jesus famously waits a couple days before going to see them. And when he’s ready, he says to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

They know there are people in Judea who already want to stone and kill Jesus. Going back to Judea is exactly what they don’t want to do. They try to hash out whether this is a good idea and Jesus says, “Lazarus is dead, let us go to him.”

This is where Thomas pipes up and says to the group, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

If Lazarus is dead, and Jesus is walking straight into the storm and facing death head on, Thomas says, alright gang, let’s go die with him.

And off they go. Thomas has no fear and no problem going to die with and for Jesus.

Fast forward through John’s Gospel: there is the raising of Lazarus, Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem, then his betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion. Now the disciples are caught up in uncertainty, grief, and the lost feeling of what was going to happen now.

The story of the empty tomb, of Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Jesus there that we just heard last weekend on Easter, has just happened. It is evening on that same day, the first day of the week, and the disciples are locked in a room fearing the same fate that Jesus met might be waiting for them at the hands of the Jews.

Jesus appears to the disciples. This incredible experience. But Thomas isn’t there. He gets back after the fact. And the disciples all tell him, “We’ve seen the Lord,” he was here with us.

Thomas says, unless I see it for myself, unless I see HIM for myself, I will not believe.

Author Debie Thomas was born in India. Her father was a Christian minister there and their culture has a special relationship with the apostle Thomas.
In her new book, “A Faith of Many Rooms,” which we’ll have a few small groups reading and discussing, she has this to say about Thomas and his doubt:

“Cautious. Skeptical. Stubborn. Daring.”

“A man who yearned for a living encounter with Jesus—an encounter of his own, unmediated by the claims and assumptions of others. A man who wouldn’t settle for hand-me-down religion but demanded a firsthand experience of God to anchor and enliven his faith. To me, this speaks not only to Thomas’s integrity but to his hunger. His desire. His investment. He wasn’t spiritually passive. He didn’t want the outer trappings of religion if he couldn’t know its fiery core. He was alive with his longing.”

I don’t know about you, but I have never been able to just accept something that people tell me without finding out for myself. This didn’t make for an easy job for my parents. They came home once when I was 9 or 10 years old, to find me stuck in the mud in the middle of the creek behind our house at low tide. I didn’t think I would get stuck, despite people warning me. My mom’s boots are still at the bottom of the creek there.

Another time, my mom had to come extract me from the clay they dredged out of Town Creek in Oxford, which I walked into–waist-deep to see how far I could get.

As a teenager spelunking in John Brown’s Cave in Harpers Ferry, in the pitch black with headlamps, a friend and I climbed up a wall about 20 feet to see what it was like. It took a minor miracle for us to make our way back down.

My Mom’s boots are still under the water in that creek.

I grew up in the Episcopal Church, I was baptized and confirmed at Holy Trinity Church in Oxford, I attended St. James Episcopal School in Hagerstown for a time. As I got older, I kept at the periphery of church, I appreciated the teachings, I liked what this Jesus guy was all about, but I couldn’t make the leap from interested to invested.

I think I have always been Thomas when it comes to faith. I needed my own experience.

How does that happen? How do we find that kind of experience?

Let’s look at something that happens right after Thomas says he won’t believe unless he sees for himself.

After Thomas says he’s not on board, John writes: “A week later… his disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them.”

A week has gone by, and Thomas is still there.

What does that tell us about Thomas? Even though he wasn’t ready to believe, even though he didn’t have the experience that the others had, he didn’t quit. He didn’t hang it up. He kept showing up. He was willing to give it time when he himself wasn’t feeling it.

What does it say about the disciples? They didn’t shun him. They didn’t ostracize him. They stood by their experience, they trusted Jesus, and they loved Thomas. They were willing to let things work themselves out.

Life goes on. The disciples stay together. Thomas keeps working through things. And a week later, Jesus comes back and gives Thomas the exact thing he asked for.

What do we learn about Jesus? He gives Thomas the experience that he needs to believe. He meets Thomas where he was and gives him his hands and shows him his side and says, “Do not doubt, but believe.” Thomas, man of his word, says, “My Lord and my God.” He believes.

What does that mean for Thomas? What does it mean for us to believe?

Here’s the thing about belief when it comes to faith. It sounds nice, it sounds reassuring: if you believe, you’re all set. If you believe, you’ll have eternal life. So how do we as Christians today show our belief? We go to church, meaning worship services. We take Communion. Maybe we wear a cross around our necks. If we’re on social media and someone says, “bet you won’t post the Lord’s Prayer,” we say, oh yeah, watch this… and post it… Hhhmm… that’ll show them.

I subscribe to the idea that if you want to know what someone believes, watch their actions. I think that’s what Jesus was and is banking on as well. If you want to know what the disciples did after their encounters with the risen Christ, go take a look in the Book of Acts. They risked their lives, they met in houses and walked and sailed hundreds of miles to win new followers of Christ. If that was a part of belonging to a church today, I think we’d all be in a bit of trouble.

One person whose journey isn’t outlined specifically in Acts is Thomas’s. Scholarship points to the idea that Thomas is who took Christianity to India. They have statues of him and monasteries and they hold that their Christian roots go all the way back to one of Jesus’s first disciples. A lot further than our roots in the United States go.

Debie Thomas outlines different stories that are associated with the apostle Thomas in India: the pared down version goes like this.

Thomas sailed to Kerala in 52 CE, so about 20 years after Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension–20 years after Thomas’s encounter with the risen Christ. He wanted to preach to the Jewish colonies that were settled near Cochin.

He was very successful, converting both Jews and Brahmins and he followed the coastline south, winning hundreds of new followers and believers of Jesus and establishing seven churches along the waterways of Kerala. He crossed over the land to the east coast near Madras.

He was so successful as a preacher and a community builder that he made the devout Brahmins in the region jealous and angry and they speared him to death in 72 CE.

For 20 years, Thomas worked with the other disciples around Jerusalem and the Middle East spreading the good news of Jesus. And for the next 20 years after that, he went to strange lands where he didn’t speak the language, where he was an outsider, where it was Thomas and the Holy Spirit and the communities of believers he helped build. Right up until the religious authorities killed him for it.

The apostle Thomas’s actions show how deeply he believed.

Debie Thomas asks this question: “What if doubt itself can be a testimony?”

She says, “If nothing else, Thomas assures me that the business of the good news–of accepting it, of living it out, and of sharing it with the world–is tough. It’s okay to waver. It’s okay to take our time. It’s okay to probe, prod, and insist on more… I need Thomas–doubter and disciple, agnostic and apostle–to show me what faith truly is.”

His doubt is honest. It is heartfelt. It is a part of who he was and part of the process of who he was becoming. Maybe you can see yourself in Thomas. Maybe doubt and questions are a part of your faith journey. They are still a part of mine. God can use our doubt as a starting point or to lead us further down the path he has laid out for us. As long as we don’t give up.

I wonder about Thomas and what his style of evangelism would have been. I picture him having a meal with a group of people who are eagerly listening to what he has to say. Except for one person sitting at the end of the table who has a raised eyebrow, shaking his or her head. Slow to accept, skeptical to believe.

I see Thomas smile, laugh a little, and say, “You’ve got doubts, huh? Me, too. Let me tell you a story about doubts and how they can be a part of faith.”

Writing as reckoning

Jim Harrison writes like he is reckoning with life, death, love, God–you name it. He writes like his life is on the line, his soul is trying to come out through language–that’s how much is at stake.

His “Essential Poems” book frequently travels with me. This morning it was:

“The stillness of this earth
which we pass through
with the precise speed of our dreams.”

that washed over me, from Harrison’s poem, “Returning to Earth.”

“I Believe” is a manifesto of things in the world that he puts faith in.

Steep drop-offs, empty swimming pools, raw garlic, used tires, abandoned farmhouses, leaky wooden boats, turbulent rivers, the primrose growing out of a cow skull. What a list! These are things I know I believe in as I read his list because each thing comes powerfully to mind–smells, pictures, feelings. This is a list of beliefs that come from experience and hard-nosed reflection. Everything on it has passed the test.

Reading Harrison calls me to write things that absolutely have to be said–something relevant, something that is working on me and that has to come out or risk burning my soul, not an academic or intellectual game, not something that sounds nice or clever–something that comes out of an ongoing wrestling match or dance or conversation with the Spirit.

This a Mark year for the prescribed church readings–most of the Gospel readings this year come from Mark’s account of the good news. For Palm Sunday our in-person services did a dramatic reading of Mark’s account of the Passion (Last Supper, betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, death and burial–the suffering) of Jesus, with readers playing different parts. On our Zoom service, we divided up the reading between a few of us. Mark’s Gospel is the shortest of the four, the writer doesn’t add fluff or niceties, there is no birth narrative, no Christmas, and the account ends with women running bewildered from an empty tomb. Reading Mark’s Passion account, he doesn’t stop to answer questions, he leaves those up to us to ask, wrestle with, and answer.

I think the writer of Mark and Jim Harrison would get along. Both of them had stories they had to tell. Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, is full of those kind of Jesus stories. It moves me more than any other week of the church calendar. This Friday evening, Good Friday, we will have a service built around the seven different last words/phrases attributed to Jesus in the different Gospel accounts of his death. Then someone will respond–something spoken, read, sung–hopefully pulling those in attendance into the story.

The Gospel writers chose to write down a story that was being told orally, for fear of losing it. They knew it was too big to risk letting it go. And each of them went about it a bit differently, each giving something of themselves and their reckoning with the good news and the Spirit.

When I read Harrison’s poetry, I know that what he is saying is vital to who he was. It conveys what he loved, what he struggled with, what he laughed at, what he cried over, and what lit up his sense of wonder; the curiosity that was in his bones. He was a rough outdoorsman who lived on a farm in Michigan near where he was born. He fished, he ate, he drank, he traveled–he lived.

I hope I can find the words, the pictures, the moments in my life where I connect to love, to wonder, to Creation, to God and to the story of God and humanity that is unfolding through all of us and transform and transmute it all through the right words.

I hope you find your own moments and experiences and transform them into your own art–whether dance, song, painting, poem, carving, or your life itself as a work of art. God is a creator and we, in God’s image, are also meant to create.

One of my favorite lines of writing comes from the beginning of a Harrison poem called “Tomorrow,” where he talks about being blindsided by a new kind of wonder, the kind we haven’t experienced before. He writes:

“I’m hoping to be astonished tomorrow
by I don’t know what”

The stars or the sunrise or sunset reflecting off the river; the smell and feeling of earned sweat; how excited your dog is when you walk in the door; a book you can’t put down or stop thinking about; the first sip of coffee or tea in the morning; jumping in the river, lake, or ocean when it’s colder than you expect; the memory of someone who shaped you; a conversation with someone you love when you don’t know what either of you will say next; an answered prayer; exploring somewhere you’ve never been; sacrificing something important for someone else–someone else sacrificing something important for you; knowing in your heart, soul, and bones that you are loved.

I’m hoping to be astonished tomorrow by I don’t. know. what. And I believe.

Some prayers

Dear God,

Some prayers move, they wander, they surf like a skateboard, they stop to look at birds or sit under a tree. Some prayers stop to pick up a six pack. Some prayers start while reading and writing next to the river and keep going sitting in a salon where my daughter is getting box braids in her hair to get ready for surgery on Monday.

U2’s “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” plays from the speakers, which makes me smile because a couple days ago Ava mentioned having that song on her playlist.

My prayer reads Brenda Miller’s “The Shape of Emptiness “ where a creative writing student whose mother had just died passes out Playdough to the class and has them squeeze it in their hands and then puts all their “hands” on a table at the front of the classroom. Miller says, “He made visible the air we never see.” And then:

“When he finishes reading he gathers our hands and gives them back to us one by one. We take them from him carefully so we can carry our emptiness into the day. We compare them, showing off the shape of our grasping. Curved like prayers. Like anger. Like love.”

God, maybe our prayers are like those hands, our grasping to fill emptiness, trying to bridge the distance between us. Sometimes that distance is wide and tough to cross. Other days we are sitting next to each other by the river smiling the same smile, thinking the same thoughts.

Lord, my prayer is written on my heart and it is for Ava on Monday and the next couple weeks, that all goes well and the surgeons and neurologists and medical team find what they need to know and that their knowledge brings hope.

Some prayers last for a couple days and have more silence in them than words. I know you appreciate the silence, Lord, because sometimes the world is too noisy. And silence speaks louder.

My prayer, God, is about love and right now love is sitting in a salon and being so full that words either pour out or nothing will come. Right now, love looks like box braids and someone taking the time and care to help my daughter so she doesn’t have to have her head shaved.

Some prayers take weeks, months, years. Some prayers run out of ink as I write them, run out of words as I speak them, and take an entire life to say what I need to say and listen for what I need to hear.

Some prayers are to be continued. Just like our love. Just like your love. And all of them are written on our hearts and with our lives, which belong to you.

Amen.

Sitting by the river

Solitude is a gift.

Silence is a gift.

Sunlight is a gift.

Sitting by the river with a strong breeze moving the water and blowing against one side of my face while the sun warms the other.

I woke up in a warm house, while it was still dark and made coffee. Made a to-go breakfast for my older daughter for her drive to work. I laughed with my younger daughter taking her to school.

Now I am sitting in the sun and the wind by the water praying, reading, writing, listening, smiling.

Behind me is a cemetery where my grandparents, family members, and friends rest peacefully. Memories and love dance between us and connect us.

The books in front of me are titled “Pilgrim” and “Gold.”

Talking to God, Rumi writes:

“Today you arrived beaming with laughter–
that swinging key that unlocks prison doors.

You are hope’s beating heart.
You are a doorway to the sun.
You are the one I seek and the one who seeks me.
Beginning and end.

You greet need with generous hands.
You flood us with spirit,

ringing from the heart,
lifting thought.”

Reading this, he and I say it together. I like to think God smiles in the sunlight.

Across the cove the sun and the wind dress a weeping willow tree. Geese float tucked away from the tide.

When I am fully here, in this moment, with a full heart and an open mind, and time alone with God, what more can I ask for? I am not alone.

Thank you for this view.
Thank you for this day.
Thank you for this life.
Thank you for your love.

Amen.

* My practice/devotion for Lent this year is to write a “proem” (prayer-poem-prose) in the spirit of Brian Doyle each day of the season. I will share some of them. This is day #3.

Thank you for things that grow

Creator God, thank you for things that grow and change and bloom in their own time.

Thank you for patience so that we can wait with hope on your timing.

Thank you for giving us grateful hearts so that we can appreciate the impermanence, the fleeting moments–nothing remains in bloom and that makes each opening, each unfolding, each blossom special.

Thank you for making us able to grow, able to change, able to seek you, to seek beauty. Thank you for making us new creations in response to the shining of your light, your truth.

God, we thank you for helping us let go when it is time. Lord, I am not always good at this. Letting go hurts. I want to hold on to the blossoms, hold on to the people, hold on to the perfect moments–I want to stay in those wonderful experiences, found and lost in time, captured and forgotten in memory. Like Peter, I want to build dwellings to stay right there.

All around us, you show us that’s not how it works. You show us in your creation that everything has its time, its season. You show us the petals, the leaves dropping off, falling to the ground, coming apart, and going back into the dirt, back to dust.

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

From dust to dust.
From dust to seed.
From seed to sprout.
From sprout to bud.
From bud to flower.

Thank you for the dust we are and the blossoms we can become.

Thank you for your love that helps us grow and bloom.

Thank you for things that grow and change and bloom in their own time.

In your time.

Thank you.

* My practice/devotion for Lent this year is to write a “proem” (prayer-poem-prose) in the spirit of Brian Doyle each day of the season. I will share some of them. This quick prayer on Ash Wednesday is the first.

The world we return to

Thankfully, life rarely comes down to desert island preferences. You know the scenarios: if you were stranded on a desert island and could only have five albums, or if you could only eat one kind of food, or if you had to watch one movie, and on and on. But they make for great conversation scenarios. You get to know someone by cutting through all the white noise and cocktail party chatter and learn something about what is important to that person. And those questions often circle back to things like music, food, books–things that open up something about what we love.

Here is one for me: if I could only read one genre of writing for the rest of my life, it would be poetry. I don’t have to think about it, I don’t need the Final Jeopardy music playing, I can say that instantly. Poetry fills my soul, speaks to my heart, and expands my mind in ways that no other kind of writing can.

This time last year, John Miller and I led a course through Chesapeake Forum: An Academy for Lifelong Learning, on how poetry connected us to and helped us understand what it is to be human. The class was held on Zoom, had close to 30 participants from multiple states including Georgia and Florida, and it was a fantastic experience, with insightful and searching questions and comments from those taking the class. I wrote about our time together in Tidewater Times Magazine.

When John and I thought about what poets to discuss for that class, we went with some of the well-known writers; it’s maybe a stretch to say that a poet other than Shakespeare can be a household name, but Milton, Blake, and Wordsworth are close. Talking about a class for this winter and what poets read and talk about, we had a different approach.

Poetry often seems to be the realm of old, dead white guys. What if for a follow up, we let people know that poetry is as meaningful, powerful, and relevant today, that poetry matters and has a much broader range of accomplished writers than those from the past. Let’s look at three living women of color who are carrying on the mantel.

Tracy K. Smith, Joy Harjo, and Rita Dove have won Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and just about any other recognition you can think of for their writing. And they have each served as Poet Laureates of the United States.

Smith’s book, “Life on Mars,” Harjo’s “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings,” and Dove’s “Playlist for the Apocalypse,” have come out in 2011, 2015, and 2022: they are recent, relevant, and are evidence that these writers, these women, are wrestling with and trying to make sense out of life, experience, and so many of the alienating forces at work in the world. These are writers, and books, that belong on our bookshelves and in our hearts and minds as we try to walk through life doing the same.

Our class, “Poetry Matters!” will meet on Zoom, Thursdays January 26, February 2, and February 9, from 10:00 to 11:30am. If it sounds like something you are interested in, you can register by clicking on the link.

I go back to Robin Williams’ line from the movie Dead Poets Society frequently because I think it says it so powerfully:

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Or maybe we give the floor to Tracy K. Smith, the first poet we will read and discuss in our class. “Life on Mars” is a book that took a hold of me from the first time I picked it up. Smith’s father was an engineer on the Hubble Telescope, which is something that comes out in her searching and brilliant poem, “My God, It’s Full of Stars.” You can read more about Smith and hear her read from that poem at the link.

Smith talks about why she loves poetry:

That’s a lofty but worthwhile goal. It’s part of the hope of a class like this: that the world we return to after reading and discussing Smith, Harjo, and Dove might seem fuller and more comprehensible as a result.

Do unto others

The world can break our heart every single day. We can wake up grateful and things beyond our control can devastate us and leave us asking questions and feeling shattered.

The world can also show us love, connection, friendship, laughter, warmth, and spark our sense of wonder.

For all the times we don’t get to choose what happens, how do we make the most of the time that we have? How do we cultivate and appreciate moments? How can we lean into connection rather than withdraw into isolation?

As the sun comes up through the trees, I have coffee in my mug. I have a dog next to me who wonders what we’ll do today and for whom whatever the day brings is enough. I have books at my elbow that inspire and provoke me. I have pen and paper to help me record and communicate life from where I sit.

There are birds coming and going at the backyard feeders—Woodpeckers, Tufted Titmice, Chickadees, Wrens.

Whatever the day brings is enough. Because that is what will be. And at the same time, there are days when we get to decide something of what the day will be.

Jesus tells us, at the end of the Sermon on the Plain in Luke’s Gospel, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)

If we want to spread joy that will last, let’s think first about the heartbreaking days that crush us. What if on those days, someone reaches out to you; someone checks in on you; someone lets you know you are not alone—that you matter.

Let’s say that is how we want to be treated. What is stopping us from treating other people that way—today, now. If you have anyone in your life who you are thankful for, or concerned about, or who is on your heart or your mind, reach out. Say hello, say thank you, say I am thinking of you, say I appreciate you, say I love you.

Not because you will get something back, but because it is how you want to be treated. Because that is a gift that we can each give. And when we are more concerned with giving than with getting, we find we need less.

Maybe that is the beginning of gratitude.

Falling Forward

Fall is a time of change, a time of incredible colors, crisp air, clear skies, and fire-pit warmth. My bones know when fall hits. It’s also always been a time of renewal, energy, and new beginnings.

This year, fall is the beginning of year two of seminary through Iona Eastern Shore for seven of us aspirants and postulants. Our studies this year are focused on the history of the Christianity (what happened between the Acts of the Apostles and today) and heavily on homiletics–preaching. I’m especially appreciating lectures, essays, and books by Tom Long, who makes me think that preaching is something that can be taught, even to those of us to whom it doesn’t come naturally.

To borrow a few aspirational sentences from Long’s book “The Witness of Preaching”–

“To have our own lives, our own work, our own words, our own struggles and fears gathered up in some way into that event (preaching) is an occasion of rich and joyful grace… To be a preacher is to be a midwife of the word… we do not establish the time of its arriving; we cannot eliminate the labor pains that surround it; but we serve with gratitude at its coming and exclaim with joy at its birth.”

And:

“Faithful preaching requires such gifts as sensitivity to human need, a discerning eye for the connections between faith and life, an ear attuned to hearing the voice of Scripture, compassion, a growing personal faith, and the courage to tell the truth.”

I have such a long way to go, but I am inspired and encouraged and am becoming a student of the art and event of preaching.

I’ve also been helped along the way this fall by a discernment group who have gathered multiple times to help me discern, distill, and clarify my calling as part of the canonical process toward ordination. The way is each and every step and I am grateful beyond words for the questions, love, and encouragement from these friends.

Small Groups

At Christ Church Easton, new small groups are gathering to wrestle with Paul’s Letter to the Romans; a group of men are two weeks into discussing Richard Rohr’s “From Wild Man to Wise Man”; and we’re looking forward to our next newcomers class, where Brenda Wood and I will help orient folks to the ministries and work of our church, while looking at how baptism, Bible study, Communion, and prayer help define our faith in Rowan Williams’ book “Being Christian.”

Romans has given me a particular focus and opportunity for the fall/winter. In the same way that I wrote each week about our small group study of John O’Donohue’s book “Anam Cara,” I’ll be writing about Romans–thoughts from different scholars, snippets from our group discussions, and I am hoping to do some video segments and interviews with folks talking Romans.

I think for many church-goers, Paul’s Letter to the Romans is something experienced piecemeal, here and there, in lectionary readings. People know it’s a big deal, but they never take the time to read it and reckon with it. And that’s understandable–it’s daunting! But it’s also beautiful and potentially transformative. I love this thought by Rev. Jay Sidebotham, in “Conversations with Scripture: Romans,” when he says:

“The expression of trust in God’s grace, a theme of the Letter to the Romans, has the power to change individual lives. It also has the power to change communities, which is why it matters that we enter into this conversation. Such a conversation does not mean that we will like or understand everything in the letter… In the spirit of conversation, a word that suggests companionship on the journey, we hope that faithful attention to this ancient letter may open the door for new insights into the expansiveness of the grace of God.”

Romans has a history of changing lives and communities. Would that our studies might increase our trust in God’s grace.

To Live Prayerfully

Last weekend, Fr. Bill Ortt preached on Luke 18:1-8, the Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge. The text starts out by saying, “Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose hope.” This is advice you give people who are going through tough times; people who might reach a point in their lives and their faith where they want to give up.

If we are going to be people for God, who is love, and so people for love, we need to lean in, not give up. We need to live prayerfully. Prayer is not simply asking for things–prayer is our connection to God. Prayer requires listening as much, if not more than talking.

That’s part of the reason why we use Rowan Williams’ book “Being Christian” in our newcomer class. It ends with prayer. And Williams describes three things that are essential for prayer:

First, and most importantly, prayer is God’s work in us… It is the opening of our minds and hearts to the Father…
Second, there is the deep connection… between praying and living justly in the world… Prayer is the life of Jesus coming alive in you, so it is hardly surprising if it is absolutely bound up with a certain way of being human which is about reconciliation, mercy, and freely extending the welcome and the love of God to others.
Third, prayer from our point of view is about fidelity, faithfulness, sticking to it… Just stay there and if in doubt say, ‘O God, make speed to save me.’ Prayer is your promise and pledge to be there for the God who is there for you.

To live a prayerful life is to open our hearts, minds, and lives to God. It’s about praying and living in a way that shows reconciliation, mercy, welcome, and love. And it’s about sticking with it.

It’s a lot to take in. It’s a lot to try. We won’t always get it right. We will stumble and fall. And none of us can do it alone. But with God’s help, and with each other, we can get back up, try again, and keep forward on the way.

I come back to the Thomas Merton Prayer regularly. We prayed it together at the first meeting of our discernment group. And it feels like a good time to offer it here:

On Being Human

Loneliness hits us all. So do suffering, loss, and pain. Hopefully so do joy, wonder, and love. But it’s easy to feel like we’re on an island. And then something happens, when maybe just for a moment, we find a connection. Someone says something or we read something and it washes over us–someone else feels that way, or ‘yes, that’s it–that’s the feeling!’ or ‘I can’t believe someone else thinks that!’

So often it’s language that connects us. It gives words to our feelings, our thoughts, our pain, our joy, our curiosity. If you are like me, that’s a feeling I get from reading, and from some writers and poets more than others.

I knew what my first tattoo was going to be the first day we studied William Blake in Dr. Gillin’s British Romanticism class at Washington College. I was 24 years old and we were discussing Blake’s poem, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” It’s a big, unwieldy, hard to get your head around, free form puzzle on first glance and I remember thinking that I didn’t know you could do that in poetry. This morning, looking over different sections of “Proverbs of Hell,” I got that awestruck feeling all over again. Here are some dropped in at random:

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
What is now proved was once only imagined.

They are like hand grenades that go off in your mind. He changed what I thought you could do with writing. He spoke things that I hadn’t yet found words for. And now I carry around his engraving “The Ancient of Days” (at the top of the page) on my left shoulder. I remember Dr. Gillin talking about the art saying it was God creating order in the universe.

In that same class we encountered William Wordsworth. And he is a poet who wrote about connected to nature and wonder the way I felt and thought about them. I can’t tell you how many times I have read, quoted, and contemplated his poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.”

This past fall I had coffee with friend and mentor John Miller. John has been a long-time instructor at Chesapeake Forum, dating back to when it began as “The Academy for Lifelong Learning” at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where we worked together.

John and I have gotten together for coffee and to talk literature and life over the past couple years, including talking about the passing and great memories of our friend, former co-worker, and John’s co-leader in countless literature classes, John Ford.

As we sat outside along the street in September, John Miller had something on his mind. He started reading aloud from John Milton’s elegy “Lycidas,” in which Milton mourns the drowning of a friend, class mate, and fellow poet and wonders about his own mortality and if our struggle is all worth it.

And the thing we kept coming back to was the way language, the way poetry, can give voice to all the things we feel and think and encounter in this business of being human. The power of language to help us get our heads and hearts around being human.

And Blake and Wordsworth were two other poets who came up in the discussion. And we went back and forth over e-mail and phone calls and what we have coming up over three Zoom sessions on Thursdays, January 27, February 3 and 10, from 10:00 to 11:30am is Milton, Blake and Wordsworth: On Being Human.

This is not an academic study of poetry. This is a look at how poetry can give us the words to help us connect to each other; to help us make some kind of sense of what it is to live a life, to grieve, to see into the heart of things; to connect to God through nature.

I go back to a line that Robin Williams delivers as John Keating, the English teacher in Dead Poets Society:

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

I have held that notion to be exactly so and tried to live my life, at least in part, along those lines.

And that’s the spirit we will approach Milton, Blake and Wordsworth with, as we discuss what it is to be human, and how language and poetry can connect us.