Two Fifty

 Two-fifty

Years ago, there was a church here,

and a community who built it:

faithful, determined, dedicated,

withstanding wars and chaos,

trusting in God and in each other.

 

So much has changed:

our world, our worship, our very language. 

Together, we speak to God

with a different music, and come  

with different expectations

of church , of community—

of our place in this complex world.

We have been profoundly changed  

and the world itself is changed by us.

But our God is a constant—

a loving, merciful lodestar

in the whirling chaos we inhabit.

He hears our prayers— 

and answers them. 

as he always has.

We trust in his goodness,

we trust in each other. 

 

Today, there is a church here,

and there is a community as before, building it,

nurturing it, through times of trial,

holding fast to that with which we started

two and a half centuries ago..

Dissenters

This year is the 250th birthday of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House, and Skip Bea suggested I write a poem. I struggled with one and wasn't quite satisfied with it; it sounded too...studied, too pretentious. I read it to JC and, while he'd not SAY so, he agreed, and said HE would start with "It would have been easier to be an Anglican." So I took that and ran with it and it made him laugh. Not only that, but it appealed to me more than the other. So I sent them both to Skip and we'll see if he approves of either. Or neither. (The other one is on here too, under the title "Two Fifty.")

Dissenters

It would have been easier to be an Anglican

in those days

instead of a bunch of Scotch-Irish dissenters

with their lofty, intellectual, democratic ways.

It would have been easier to worship at Christ Church

and bow courteously at the Washingtons’ pew

than to sit ramrod-straight

at the Meeting House, eyes forward

and attentive

to some profound sermon, 

or to meet with the elders 

on some obscure point of practice.  

Easier, yes—

but not Presbyterian;

not fiery discussion, not lengthy debate,

not the committee, not the vote.

We still embrace the hard way,

the compromise, the biblical answer,

the hard-won agreement.

That’s who we are,

then and now.

Two hundred and fifty years and

we are still here,

dissenting. 

Valentine 2022

There’s a heart-felt holiday in the offing,
and somehow, I am supposed to measure
and record
the height and depth and weight of the love 
we carry between us.
It’s an odd and sticky amorphous burden,
is love.
It ebbs and flows like an ocean tide: 
rushing forward in full attack,
then slipping back from our pursuit.
It comes with no thought for convenience
or implausibility
or circumstance
or time.
No Hallmark-determined beginning
or middle or predictable end.
Love is love is love:
a roller coaster that we ride together
clinging to each other through the ride,
through the peaks and valleys,
believing our ultimate arrival
will be as our beginning:
together.

Sunrise, Sunset

Not just over the sky and sea,

but the smaller dawn of 

understanding,

the sunset of a job well-done,

or task completed--

the brilliant colors of opportunities ahead,

and the fading away of secret sorrows.

Where does it say we must look to the sky for glory?

Why can we not seek it here,

In our own hearts

and the hearts of others?

Encouragement, satisfaction

in the cycles of our lives:

rising, setting

suns and moons and stars

of our own creation,

our own destinies.