I preached for the first time in church on Easter. The circumstances surrounding the opportunity are sad – my pastor’s mother passed away and so I stepped in. I have preached many times at seminary but not in church before. I suppose if you’re going to have a first time for something like preaching Easter is probably the best day for it.

People were kind. Comments were positive. I’m happy with how it went. I hope for many more opportunities. It feels right. You know what I mean by that. Things sort of lock into place and everything feels ‘right’.

 

 

Not sure why I like this quote but there’s something evocative about it. Oddly it is out of a March 17/05 CNN.com story about Robert Blake being acquitted of murder charges. Now I am neither here nor there when it comes to Blake. When asked what he was going to do next he said he would spend some time "cowboying" and described it as follows:

"Cowboying is when you get in a motor home or a van and you just let the air blow in your hair," he said. "And you wind up in some little bar in Arizona someplace, and you shoot a game of one-hand nine-ball with some 90-year-old Portuguese woman that beats the hell out of you.

"And the next day you wind up in a park someplace playing chess with somebody, and you go see a high school play where they’re doing ‘West Side Story.’

"And you just roam around and get some revitalization, that there are human beings in the world, that there are people living their lives that have no agenda."

Gone, gone, gone

(fallen away, fallen away)

twist’en farther from the plumb

(fallen away, fallen away)

thar’s hope in the light

(fallen away, fallen away)

twist’en for to be a broken bow

shoot’en short and nary a able to go

onward, still reach’en forward

(fallen away, fallen away)

Whar’s the one who called before

that crystal voice of purest song

spill’en love’s sweet creation on the land

heal’en all, heal’en all that’s

fallen away

stars he’ll come again

burn’en oceans away in grace

sure he’ll come with perfect plumb

and spin eternal weave of all

bound in all and all and all