Ash Wednesday -

So, today is Ash Wednesday and we are beginning our journey towards towards Easter. So this year for my Lenten discipline I will be writing a new poem every day of Lent and Posting it here. On days I'm away from my computer I will still write a poem and post here the day after.

Invocation:

It is a small small thing
Death
It is a little thing
Mortality
So little and so much can fell them
So strong and weak can overcome
So simple so profound may know them

Paradise in Ashes
Heaven in Oil
Blaring Paradoxes Side by Side
Strange Companions on a Journey Upward.

Football Fan

So I never considered football to be all that much fun. Until I watched the recent Colts/New England AFC Championship game. Then I was hooked.

I always told people I favored the Colts, and I never swerved... but I can't say I paid much attention one way or another. However, the NE/Colts game was so exciting I spent the days leading up to the Superbowl reading the Colts Website.

So I think in just a couple games I became a football fan. This is quite surprising really. I'm a poet, an artist, and football fan. People really do change.

January 6th

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEE!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEE!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SOMEONE FANTASTIC!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEE!

AND MANY MORE!

Lonelygirl15

So, I have a new interest that began a few weeks ago. I like millions before me have become interested in the continuing fictional saga of Lonelygirl15 and her compatriots. YouTube, the new forum for online creativity and derision. A place where people can come and create, and others can then mock what has been created.

BOOM Interviews

So earlier this month I had my Board of Ordained Ministry Interviews. It went really well and I am headed toward commissioning. As the interviews approached I got really really anxious and nervous. I thought back to when I began the process in the Winter of 2005... and realized... I've been headed towards this interview... for 11 years.

Eleven years of work come down to one hour in a room with strangers. People who know me only by what is written in my examination questions. Now that I have passed the interview, the rest of my life seems to stretch in front of me... I begin to wonder.

What's next? I still don't have an answer to that question... so this Christmas... I'm looking for a guiding star, to lead me to where the savior waits. This is quite exciting don't you think???

I wanted to do this again.

IPod
Instructions: Go to your iPod and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question.

How does the world see you?
Till We Reach that Day - From Ragtime

Will I have a happy life?
Happiness Hotel - The Muppet Album

What do my friends really think of me?
The Solid Rock - Passion Hymns

Do girls have secret crushes on me?
Carnival Town - Norah Jones

How can I make myself happy?
Socializing - Italian for Travelers

What should I do with my life?
Come to the Table - Michael Card

Will I ever have children?
Wheels of a Dream - Ragtime

What is some good advice for me?
Call to Arms - The Insyderz

How will I be remembered?
Joyous Light - Passion Hymns

What is my signature dance song?
Back to you - John Mayer

What do I think my current theme song is?
Harry's Wondrous World - Harry Potter Soundrrack

What song will play at my funeral?
Your Fault - Into the Woods

What type of women do I like?
I've got you under my skin - Michael Buble

What is my day going to be like?
Sing, Sing, Sing - Swing: The Lee-Press On Nails

Light one Candle... Christ is Coming

So, we are in pre-advent launch. I keep staring at my advent wreath and its lovely candles, admiring my Christmas tree... and thinking... how exciting it is, that Christ is coming. That is one of the amazing early themes in Advent. Christ is coming... he's coming to set everything right, both in a memorial sense (Nativity) and in a eschatological sense (Second Coming).

So this Advent I want Jesus to change my life in new ways. I want my eyes to turn to him and leave behind forever the "glamor of sin". I want to adore him.

Adoration, is such a beautiful word. An even more beautiful act... I wonder what form my adoration will take this year? What does adoration look like?

You may not understand this post right now... but you will.

About Fantasy...

So, yesterday was halloween and our church sponsors a "Trick or Treat Night". (No letters please... for most of us its a cultural holiday and nothing more.) Kids come in, get a glow bracelet, a bag of candy and have thier picture taken. The picture is sent to the kids after halloween. So, my friend Christy dressed up like a pilgrim, we had a crusader, a monk, and Julius Ceasar. You know who I dressed up as? A wizard from Harry Potter (Again, no lettes). I even have a pretend wand (I mean it no letters. God is not going to put the smack down on me for reading a fiction book.)

The event was alot of fun for all of us and I am always amazed to see what kids come up with for halloween. There is something about being released to wear a costume... If you could be anything... what would it be?

I dressed as a wizard... because I love the idea of magical worlds and adventure. Ever since I was a child I remember playing out imagination.I used to pretend I was in Narnia, and that Aslan would always be there to save me. Even today in my flights of fancy I can imagine a thousand scenarios and stories of castles, wizards and magic. I also imagine what it would be like to be on the stage again...

So tell me... what do our dreams and fantasy lives say about us?

My Desk...

Okay, so it's 11:30 at night, and I am bored and suffering yet another bout with insomnia... so I decided to clean my desk in my study at the church. Let me tell you... filling out all that ordination paperwork, doctrine books, papers upon papers... all piling up on my desk... I forgot what color my desktop is. It is absolutely unbelieveable.

My friend James says that if you want to know his state of mind... look at his room. Is it clean? If so, everything is okay. Looking at my desk, I am becoming okay again. As i clean off the surface I feel less and less burdened.

Another friend, JD says that all of life can be understood through scraps... here are a few of mine...


ARTIFACT #1 - Pak-a-sak receipt $2.27 Donut and Diet Coke

ARTIFACT #2 - "Welcome to Preschool" Letter

ARTIFACT #3 - "Doctrinal Examination Question" Describe your personal experience of God..."

ARTIFACT #4 - "108 Wildwood Court" scrawled on a post-it. No idea what city or who lives there.

ARTIFACT #5 - HYMN "I know my Redeemer Lives"

Do you have any ideas how many layers I had to get through to get to this hymn? There it was among the bottle caps and papers...

It feels good to clean.

I Think My God Beautiful

Brushstroke on canvas
Sound Blessing Air
Light Sings Voices Shine
Trembling Leaves
Dancing Roots
Curve, Line, and Color
Sound, Smell, Taste, and Wonder

Wander Aloud Over Syllables Apples
Stone Sour Sweet Tonalities
Soul Light Awe Going Graces

The purpose of my living - Beauty

Finding my Way

I painted something today. It was a tree that sits outside my friends and parishoners Patty and Ralph's farmhouse. It is a huge tree, unimpeded by power lines it is curled and tall... so I wanted to paint it.

I got alot of interesting things on the canvas. I did a good job of demonstrating structure and I love the way everything bends. However there is a problem.

It's the colors. I used purple for the tree on a blue midnight kind of background... then I used orange and yellow to make the details on the tree and the leaves are green. The problem, the purple and orange make it look spooky. Like a halloween tree in children's book.

I'm going to fix it... but in the meantime... I find this a wonderful metaphor for my life right now. It's right and yet so wrong at the same time. It works and it doesn't. I don't know how this tree should grow.

PS I'll post a picture of the tree later.

Haiku - Bleed

Sail across the strings
How the bow rips painful stripes
sound slashes the air

Friday Night in Montpelier

So it's Friday Night in Montpelier. Tonite we had a "Meet The Parents Night" for our preschool program from 5-7. I of course attended and met lots of cool kids and their parents. When it was over... I went home, ordered a pizza and watched four episodes of "Louis and Clark" on DVD (Thank you Netflix). Whoever told Dean Cain he can act? And Teri Hatcher is still playing the same role on Desperate Housewives. I can tell even from camera angles that neither one was chosen for their acting ability.

I say all this because I want to make one thing clear. This is not my idea of a cool Friday Night. In fact, I remember a time when I studied all day and then spent almost the whole weekend with my friends. Movies, art museums, plays, even hanging out at home was the coolest thing ever. Not so lately. I miss community.

The people of this town and church are so wonderful. This church is filled with loving folks. The problem is not the church, the town, or it's people. Also, one does not need to go out every weekend in order to have full life. It's just that so many weekends, and weekdays have been spent alone. Days filled with ministry and papers, and work but no deep conversation. There are no soul friends here and one can only do so much reading.

Ugh... feeling sorry for myself. I'll stop.

So I went to a movie and...

So I went to see that new movie "Step Up" and it was exactly what I thought it would be. Boy from wrong side of the tracks meets girl with opportunities, they change one anothers lives, fall in love, they fall apart, something bad happens, they come back together just in time for a huge showstopping number to end the show... and they all live happily ever after.

Check out this line from USA Today film critic Steve Bowles:

"Step Up dips from the well that seems to feed all Hollywood dance films: forbidden love between a roughneck boy and a repressed girl, drawn together by their common desire to shake their rumps."

But you don't go to this movie for the story since the story is incredibly corny; you go to watch people dance. I enjoyed it. It was fun.

However, on my way home my mind kept turning toward one thing with a singular and powerful focus. Though I was almost twenty miles from home I could see, suspended in the road above me one thing that seemed to get more and more real as I got closer to home. My thoughts were pointed like an arrow toward a blue case leaning against the wall of my prayer room. Where it has sat since the day I moved in...with broken pegs and in need of new strings my thoughts were concentrated on my violin... Giovanni.

ONe thing I can say about my musical ability on the violin is that so far as the world is concerned I'm not very good. In fact, if I could do my life over again I would have started the violin earlier, rather than after college. I would have studied music and art, and would have gotten a BFA degree. Now, as I seek to integrate the Fine Arts and Theology, I find myself lacking certain skills.

As I was thinking about all this I became aware of God's presence as he said: You once read "With Christ in the School of Prayer... correct? If I can teach you the eternal work of prayer, why then do you assume that I cannot teach you art history, and music, and painting? I have given you this time to fill you life and gain the skills you need. Leave it to me to bring people into your life to teach you the things you need to know."

So tomorrow, in an effort to no longer neglect the work God would have me do... I'm going to have my violin repaired.

(PS... I just completed another painting... I'll post it soon.)

Stigmata

If I could
I would feel in my own flesh
what he did:
Hands tearing in empathy--
Thirsting for a people too drunk
To realize their drought
Weeping for a people to
Jubilant to feel their sadness

Somehow within his passion
Would be feeling more for those around me
Somehow by looking at them from the cross
Through tears I might see them truly.
Crying that they might be found.

In feeling his isolation
I might understand those distant from God.
I might see more of God from from such a perch
Heat, blood, lonely, breath,
Drowning in the midday sun.

If I could be that,
If I could see there,
Then I would not sin.

The Marriage of Jesus - The Ultimate Oppression

So lately I've been thinking about what it might mean if the DaVainci Code wasn't a work of fiction. What if Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married?

Now, let's try this out in several theological constructs. Imagine if Jesus wasn't divine... imagine if he was just a man. It is clear, even if he were just human, that the gospels portray him as the Messiah. The annointed one of God. Now imagine if this annointed one this Messiah got married. His wife, in this case Mary Magdeline, would be married to teh one who was to reestablish David's Throne and wrest Israel from the hands of it's oppressors. Now... this means, that anytime Mary decided to disagree with her husband, she would be disagreeing with the Messiah, with God's purposes, with Israels salvation. This is not marriage, this is oppression.

Now let's try this out as a Christian. Jesus being both human and divine, one with the Father, and part of the triune God. God, the creator of all things, first creates Mary Magdalene to be Jesus wife. Remembering how far above us God is the very thought of immortal God marrying a mortal human being is almost beastial and/or incestuous. Further, it would almost be like a human being creating a robot to supply their needs.

However, imagine now what it might be like for Jesus and Mary Magdalene in their marriage. In this scenario every time Mary Magdalene disagreed with her husband, every time she got angry with him, she would be committing a sin. Further, anytime she wasn't wanted, Jesus by his almighty power could mirculously silence her or send her away. The difference in power is just too extreme for such a marriage to ever be healthy. Further it paints a rather sickening picture of God creating a woman to satisfy his own needs.

Just a few thoughts...

Ordinary Piety

(Inspired by Vespers a few nights ago... I wanted to write this poem.)

Underneath my robes
I wear blue jeans
Wishing my feet were bare
Wanting to be a Hippy
High Church sensibilities

In my soul, dreadlocks
My words - wings
Maybe a tatoo
Definitely tie dye
Long hair given
Lyrical soul
Chant and Evensong
Guitar Solo

Raging inside me
Another person
Bashing Free
Headed to the altar
Ordinary Piety

Happy Feast Day

So, I am heading back to Minnesota for a wonderful wonderful yearly retreat with my Benedictine Oblate Brothers and Sisters. Once a year I go to Minnesota to pray and spend time at Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery. If you click the link above you will find a copy of the Abby Banner from Saint Johns abby from Spring of 2001. Look on page 14 and you will find a story detailing the hisotry of Saint Brigids as a Methodist-Benedictine Monastry.

So anyway, next week we will be celebrating the Feast of Saint Benedict and having our yearly retreat. I won't be around computers so I won't be able to blog about it... but still I am very excited. Talk to you guys soon.

Michelangelo

You've Got to Have a Dream

So I'm reading a book called "You've Got to Have a Dream: The Message of the Musical" by Ian Bradley. It makes me ache to be in musical theater again... it has been far far too long.

Anyway, I was taken aback by the thesis of this book so I thought I might present it here for discussion with whomever reads my blog. "My Thesis in this book is that the musical, and especially in the modern musical, has a significant theological content and spiritual dimension and provides for many people an experience which can genuinely described as religious as well as entertaining."

Oddly enough I have very little problem with this thesis because I know musical theater. When you place human existence into musical form it carries a double emotional impact that cannot help but transformative. The thoughs emotions and beliefes are transformed into musical form and are therefore twice as prevalent. Beyond emotion though, musicals grow out of the theological worldviews of their writeres andso even when God is absent from the plot the writers beliefs about God are present in the music and lyrics.

What do you guys think? Don't be afraid to post!!

The Birth of the Imagination...

So a recent thought came to me... Look at this text from Genesis 2:19

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Creation was brand new and the first thing God asked of Adam, was to delightfully use his creativity. I imagine it in my mind like this. As God show adam everything in the garden he seems to say:

"Conceive Adam, imagine, what is it's name? Tell me what it makes you think of? What symbol, what prescence does it have? Dream Adam, what is it's name."

The birth of humanity is quickly followed by the birth of imagination and creative thought. the song that brought forth stars was still ringing in the universe when God turns to Adam and asks him to imagine. More than that, Adams creative power was sancitifed by God in that, whatever he imagined it would be called, that was it's name.

Now it is up to parents to name their children. The creative capacity continues not just at birth but throughout a child's life as it is up to parents to write upon their children their identity. Parents who take this role seriously dream and write hope into their children. Others fail in doing this and write depair into their lives.

What would we have been had we not fallen? Where would our imagination have taken us? Where would our children be, if we say them with undimmed eyes, and had the capacity to write hope perfectly into their lives?