My family had one living area in our three bedroom ranch house. It had a shiny brick bench in front of the fireplace. It was a perfect place for a stage and served as one pretty faithfully for this girl obsessed with her own performance skills. Most of my best moves were done while I happened to be alone in that living room, Amy Grant’s newest cassette on the tape deck and my back to the audience, arms rising at... Read more
In graduate school I took a course on 20th century Polish poets (Poland has produced some of the world’s best poetry in the past 100 years). It was a fantastic class. In it, I studied Wisława Szymborska, a woman whose poems were moving and full of delicate images that always cut hard. I love what little I know of her work because of it the way it pulls me toward emotion. It builds and builds and builds until I... Read more
I spent yesterday morning rinsing, drying, salting and peppering two chickens. One was for a friend who has just had a baby girl and one was for my little family of eaters. I handled those chickens with love, patting them sweetly with salt all over my hands while Brooksie napped and August played astronaut nearby. I held the little bird and thanked God for his (or her!) life and the reality that its sacrifice will nourish my family. And then... Read more
“As for the abbot or abbess, they must show the greatest possible concern with great wisdom and perseverance to avoid losing any one of the sheep committed to their care. They should be well aware that they have undertaken an office which is more like the care of the sick than the exercise of power over the healthy. They should be anxious to avoid the Lord’s rebuke to the shepherds through the Prophet Ezekiel: you made your own those you... Read more
That my baby has learned how to use sound effects when pushing his brother’s cars around on the floor. (Can vroooom count as his third word?) For the sound effects that have become a significant part of my communication skills. I catch myself saying: “Boom!” and “Splat!” while I chop the slices of cucumbers my kids are about to consume. How did everything become a sound? (Btw, my friend Cat would say that my sound effect making is not solely based... Read more
One of the things I most love about the intentionality of liturgy is how suddenly it can catch my throat in worship. Lately, though I’m always moved by words in music or scripture, it’s in the physical movement of worship that I am most reminded of God’s sweet presence, that I hear most loudly the movement of grace and forgiveness and restoration. At Christ Church, we follow a liturgical tradition that is a bit odd (compared to your regular liturgical... Read more
I’m still working my way through Robert Hass’ Time and Materials so you get another Hass poem this week. (Next week I’ll give you something new, I promise.) This book is beautiful. There are several poems I could have chosen (some that are probably an easier subject matter). However, I picked this one because, of all that I read of his this week, it stunned me most and continues to haunt me. I’d love to know that you think about... Read more
I’ve said before that I’m drawn to teaching August scripture from the perspective of the The Jesus Storybook Bible, which so beautifully offers the Bible as a bigger story: one of God coming to rescue the world in the sacrifice of Jesus. I long for August to encounter scripture as the good story of God’s great love for us, as opposed to the way I learned to apply scripture in my childhood Sunday School classes: well-meant but unfortunate morality lessons.... Read more
“All should be prepared to rise immediately without any delay as soon as the signal to get up is given; then they should hurry to see who can get first to the oratory for the work of God, but of course they should do this with due dignity and restraint. The young should not have their beds next to each other but they should be placed among those of the seniors. In the morning, as they are getting up for... Read more
“Cast out from the luxuriant friendship and ease of the hours, we feel a blankness, a sameness, an aloneness, a lack of sense to all our doings and even our accomplishments. We attend the hushed memorial service for a dead friend and find the list of his achievements moves no one in the assembly, but the atmosphere does quicken in the crowded room when his daughter speaks of all the many things he loved and everything and everyone he held... Read more
Micha Boyett
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