Reflections for

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Oct 05, 2014

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Psalm 19; (Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:7-15;) Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46

Poetry

Ananias of Damascus

Sep 20, 2012 by Tania Runyan

Saul, you thug who once dragged
believers through the streets,

flinging them from their beds so hard
their arms popped from their sockets,

how like a dying child you look,
your stomach caved in from fasting,

lips blistered with fevered prayer.
You reach into the darkness, trembling

from the exhaustion of reliving
the scene: The light shot out of the sky—

no, it flared from the stones—no,
Jesus, your hair was on fire—

God spoke to me, too, which is why
I stand at your bedside now and beseech

the Spirit to enter. He loves to appear
in the lonely, dank rooms of the faithful:

Noah, Mary, Abraham, all sweating out
their dreams of God. You will learn

how hard belief can be. You will sing
while the guards whip you to the bone,

touch an enemy’s shoulder with grace
while the avenging knife burns at your hip.

One day you will wish for your sickbed again,
this woolen blanket of blindness.

But I do as I am told. I lay my fingertips
on your lids, and your eyes rumble

like stones rolling from the grave. Your lids
creak open, and the light burns through.

This healing is not easy. Something silver
is falling from your eyes. Brother, something

like the scales of a struggling fish
is scattering at my feet.

Poetry

Count it all as loss

Jul 20, 2012 by Tania Runyan

All of it: children whistling ryegrass,
my husband rubbing my back

in his sleep. Consider rubbish the sun
climbing the eye of Delicate Arch,

the scent of popped-open coffee.
Leave it behind, pleads the scourge-

scarred Paul. Lay it down and rise.
But even loss is hard to count as loss.

This morning frost has leathered
the nasturtium, but I cannot endure

ripping the haloes of leaves from their pot.
The astilbe, once a lavender mist

in my window, burns toward winter,
seed heads trembling like the hands

of an old charismatic. Maybe in heaven
I will remember the March I buried

those bare roots around the base of the oak
and brooded about some sin or another

holding me fast in the mud, spring
the only unseen I could bear to believe.

In the World

Number one, we've just begun

Jul 06, 2012 by Steve Thorngate

Rod Dreher revealed recently that he couldn't come up with more than six of the Ten Commandments from memory. He also pointed out the irony of this fact coming from someone who often gets on his "high horse about theological ignorance," so I won't pile on.

I've mentioned before that, while I haven't retained everything I learned at my evangelical grade school, I do recall a catchy song for remembering the U.S. presidents in order. We also performed a lot of musicals, including the popular '80s Christmas program Angels Aware.

Blogging Toward Sunday

Striving, or not

Philippians 3:4b–14

Sep 26, 2011 by Clay Oglesbee

Texts about "striving" make me itch. They bring to mind our own cultural commitments to speak about lifting ourselves by our own bootstraps to reach high goals.

Living by the Word

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Exodus 20:1–4; 7–9, 12–20; Philippians 3:4b–14; Matthew 21:33–46

Sep 20, 2011 by Clay Oglesbee

An organization was leading a training seminar for professionals. At one point the leader asked participants to imagine themselves setting out on an adventure with only ten items in each of their packs. A few minutes later, they were told that an imagined mishap had occurred and that it was necessary to leave behind five items and keep five.

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Revised Common Lectionary © 1992 the Consultation on Common Texts. Used by permission.