Category: Poems

  • Post-acquittal prayer

    A prayer for mercy as the news of Trump’s acquittal in his second impeachment trial sinks in. God, have mercy on everyone who grieves this. Have mercy on everyone who rejoices. Have mercy on everyone who is oblivious. Have mercy on everyone who is numb. Have mercy on everyone who carries disillusionment like weight within…

  • Election Week Blessing

    Because I wanted to be cool like Nadia Bolz-Weber (just kidding―I’ll never be as cool as Nadia!) and write some blessings of my own. (Check out Nadia’s beautiful “Blessed are the Agnostics” piece here, if you like. It’s really lovely.) These words are loosely inspired by the beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), and much less loosely inspired…

  • What Does Such a Moment Ask?

    What Does Such a Moment Ask? What does such a moment  ask of us? Kindness―maybe― but not the kind that cowers  in a corner and will not articulate  the jarring, rage-inducing,  healing, liberating truth. Love―maybe― but not the kind that circles  wagons, covers up injustice and provides protection for abusers to continue their abuse. Humanity―maybe―…

  • Women, I Would Like to Call Forth

    Women, I Would Like to Call Forth Women,  I would like to call forth your holy anger. Let it rattle the sidings  of your churches―the ones  that keep telling you to serve, but do not serve you well. Let it be no longer  held constrained within your bones in bonds unspoken, swept  beneath the doormat…

  • How Far We Were

    How Far We Were I did not know      how far we were          from one another til 2020 blasted into light     the light years that had always          been between us, like a looking glass      intent on showing         wrinkled scars  where we expected to      see youth.          Sometimes  I wish I did not know     how much we do…

  • Answer To

    I’m thinking of all the evangelical leaders who say ridiculous and harmful things, and wondering if all the ordinary Christians who listen to them know that they don’t have to – that just because someone is a pastor or has a big following (or a lot of media attention) and claims the Christian name doesn’t…

  • We the People (American Lament)

    We the People (American Lament) Take a needle, poke a hole in the  American pipe dream, and watch it all  deflate.  We the people  never knew how to  care for ourselves, our neighbors, let alone the ones that we call strange. We grasp with cowardice  to table scraps  of life, liberty, happiness, like broken records …

  • God is Calling Her Children

    God is Calling Her Children God is calling  her children to the garden, to walk through wildflowers in the place where life grows slowly and unveils itself in its own time, to let soil slip through fingers in the place where we do not need to be trailblazers, conquerors and colonizers, chairpeople and board members, but,…

  • She Raises Her Daughters

    A poem inspired by awesome parents like my friend Sarah Suarez, who put so much thought and intention daily into the ways they raise their daughters, and by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ recent speech in response to Rep. Ted Yoho’s disrespectful comments and subsequent non-apology. If you haven’t watched the full video of AOC’s speech (included…

  • Blow Up the Shelter (Apocalypse)

    Thinking of the situation over the last few months with Menlo Church (see this article for what seems like a pretty reasonable summary), and also just the general tendency of a lot of church leaders to cover up things that might seem incriminating rather than actually search for truth and try to do the right…