RELENTLESS IS CREATION’S VIA DOLOROSA   Relentless is Creation’s Via Dolorosa— choosing each millisecond along its ever expanding Tree-of-Life journey— emerging, purging, resurging, fragile resilience ever setting Being’s face toward new Jerusalems: galaxies swirling, atoms whirling, comets hurling, creatures toiling, humans turmoiling and gargoyling.   Relentless is Creation’s Via Dolorosa to temples of grandeur, upsetting tables of the greedy, setting up banquets with the needy, mocked, bound, beaten, crowned with corporate logos by those who wash their hands politely, litigiously while Pachamama’s precious vitality— sapped, tapped, stretched, plundered— pours black blood and fool’s gold, its seamless garment stripped, folded, and gambled for spoils, its parched sighs ignored while skies blacken, mountains shake, winds choke, seas roar, and fires scorch.   Relentless is the Cry of Creation’s Via Dolorosa— reverbera...

This poem called "Easter, Pandemic" was read in church as part of a recent service by church member Katy Gordon.  The context: During Easter 2020 - early in the pandemic when things were in full lockdown and six-foot social distancing guidelines were in place - Katy decided to make muffins and to deliver them to various friends over Easter weekend. At JoAnn Ford's house, there was a welcome surprise in the form of conversation outside and a tour of JoAnn's garden. "Easter, Pandemic" by Katy Gordon   A friend gives us a tour of her garden – we watch from six feet back. Around our feet, the chickens chirr, digging and scrubbing the ground for grubs. Easter morning.   What better sermon can there be for resurrection than a woman in her garden, last year’s gourds curing on the ground, this year’s seeds reaching towards the sun?

Ellie Stock has a piece that has just appeared in the Presbytery of Giddings Lovejoy e-newsletter and blog. She compares two deaths - that of Julius Caesar "dying as he tried on hold to power as Dictator for Life of the Roman Empire ... his death leading to continuing intrigue, chaos, and power grabs" and that of "Jesus, dying also betrayed and abandoned by his closest followers" but with a totally different undersatanding of power. Ellie asks the provocative question, "Is Earth moving towards an Ides of March—a death caused by the ambition, competition, hunger-for-power?" and what does the Jesus Way have to say about this? You can read the whole piece here.