Category: Uncategorized
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I disagree with myself ALL THE TIME.
In grad school, I attended an inter-religious consortium of seminaries and institutes. One term while taking a class over at the Unitarian Universalist seminary, I recall telling a UU classmate that I am a “Trinitarian Universalist.” That might well be a fancy way to say “Episcopalian,” although I doubt it.…
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Squirrels!
Two poems about those adorable pests So, I have a hole in my roof. My 101-year-old Detroit home has one of those very typical additions, a kitchen nook with a room above it. On the second floor, that creates a room off the bedroom I use as my office. It’s…
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Even the Dogs Get Crumbs
The Gospel lection for this Sunday (September 8, 2024, in the Episcopal edition of the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Proper 18) is Mark 7:24-27. It includes two pericopes, including one of the Gospel accounts of the story of a Gentile woman whose child is ill: Jesus set out and…
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In the Beginning Was the Word
And God said, “Letthere be light!”And there was light, or would have been, had God been crafting a cosmos intelligible to the Bronze Age mind, or mine. Scientists—specifically, astrophysicists—tell us that we can detect light from the Big Bang, the background microwave radiation all around us. We can see into…
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First Sunday in Lent
I am not a fan of Lent. There is altogether too much breast-beating for my taste. Or, rather, for my mental and spiritual health. I’m trying to recast it in my own mind, because I know it means so much more. As one of the Proper Prefaces for Lent says,…
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Trying so hard to be ordinary
It’s a weird calendar this year for us church folk. Christmas Eve was on the Fourth Sunday in Advent, and Ash Wednesday will be on Valentine’s Day again. This past Saturday, January 6, was the Feast of the Epiphany—a feast you would think would be transferred to the nearest Sunday,…
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Mood Journaling
I’ve just had an Advent poem published in Earth & Altar, which I’ll repost over here soon. Until then, give them some traffic: https://earthandaltarmag.com/posts/among-women-blessed And now, on to what is certainly my most self-indulgent post. I thought I’d share an exercise I’ve been doing on and off for years now.…
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A Phenomenology of Trees Before Dawn
(Response to Theresa Moore’s reduction linocut print, View of Loch Long) Elaine Elizabeth BelzA PHENOMENOLOGY OF TREES BEFORE DAWN any unenumerated morning— early chill resolved with tea& cardigans—you’re already out by the lakeside I fumble with paper—still sloughing off sleep— eyes still trying to dreamopen—pull trees out of dark silhouettesone…
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Call & Response 4
OK, that was amazing. Last night’s Call & Response event centered around poets reading and artists talking about their work. The watercolorist Carol LaChiusa (pictured with me above) responded to my poem, “Mind Game” with her painting, “Mind Games.” She said that she tried to capture the imagery of my…
The Sound 