The second knee replacement (Improv on Philippians 2)

It’s been a while since the right limb
could bend at the name of Jesus,
or anyone else –
meet the challenge to clamber
over rocks on a hillside
hike with teenagers,
come level with the sharp cry
of a small child’s skinned knee
or discovery of an ant,

satisfy the longing to gather
a handful of sand at the beach
and let it run through my fingers,
remembering someone
whose life just slid like grains
into the sweet saltiness of the ocean.

I remember the first replacement
and what a novice I was at pain,
a million times resisting
the common sense of asking for help.

But what kind of mind does Paul suggest
I am supposed to bring to this?
Perhaps one that slips into arthroplasty
as part of a pilgrimage to confessing
the truest Name of all –

and then bends willingly … simply
to a hill walk,
a child’s call of fear and joy,
the gathering of handfuls of love for people,
both those I know well
and those I may never meet,

mixed with many
necessarily unexpected holy kneelings.

The Road to the Hill Along the River, Aotearoa

A couple for Autumn

Autumn version of Morning Has Broken (tune, Bunessan)

Morning has broken, like the first morning.
Geese have awoken, distant but heard.
Praise for the winging, praise for the morning,
Praise for life springing fresh from the Word.

Sweet is the autumn, golden before us
As the bright leaves fall, from the dark trees.
Praise for the beauty of the rich harvest,
Praise for God’s whispers on the cool breeze.

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the evening.
Dawn sky and sunset — palette of play.
Praise with our rising, praise with our resting;
God’s hope and blessing for every day.

On lying awake in the autumn

I hear a truck start, cough,
roll over uneven pavement.
It crunches acorns,
shifts into another gear
and tires swish on wet pavement.

There is wind and I can tell
that the leaves are red, not green —
they are thick, brittle, castanet,
ready to let go and fall.

The insomnia of spring
is full of early morning birdsong
the subtle opening of earth
to the thrust of bulbs.

Now only the high distant honkings
punctuate the pilgrimage of geese.
In their wake are many
thin sighing sounds,
the settling in
of the last late squirrel,
a chipmunk’s hasty flight
from its small wild fears
through corn stalks, around pumpkins
not yet chosen from the vine.

The fingers of darkness are stronger –
it will take a long time
before they set the morning free.

An argument for World Communion Sunday

(I find that this year, I am writing the same words (OK never quite the same, you know, but the same feeling as a year ago at this time:)

“It’s gotten out of date,” someone said,
this custom of mid-twentieth century.

On the contrary, I reply,
after listening to my country’s current leader
slamming the entire United Nations,
praising the destruction
of the environment
for the world’s grandchildren,
boasting of incarcerating
those who most need welcome

and starting a war
that makes no sense, but violence,
and more poverty,
helped less, at home,

sharing Communion across national borders
seems like the least we can do,
hoping against all logic,
that a weeping world
would ever want to break Bread
and share a Cup with us.

A Gift that has blessed me for the last three years

Choctaw elder and retired Episcopal bishop Steven Charleston offers a meditation honoring different ways of knowing that have fed his soul:  

For all the great thoughts I have read
For all the deep books I have studied
None has brought me nearer to Spirit
Than a walk beneath shimmering leaves

Golden red with the fire of autumn
When the air is crisp
And the sun a pale eye, watching.

I am a scholar of the senses
A theologian of the tangible.

Spirit touches me and I touch Spirit
Each time I lift a leaf from my path
A thin flake of fire golden red
Still warm from the breath that made it.

Steven Charleston, “Scholar of the Senses,” in Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigenous Elder (Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books, 2023

Confession … (the health of the world)

I confess that I live in a country
that just rejected a United Nations declaration
of international collaboration and solidarity
to prepare for and respond to pandemics.

I confess that I live in a country
where people received vaccines more than a year
ahead of poorer countries
during the coronavirus pandemic.

I confess that I live in a country
whose Health Secretary stated this last year
that it would not sign a political declaration
on chronic diseases and mental health,

I confess that my country, the United States
was the only vote, only vote, only vote
against a global commitment
to reduce traffic accidents.

I affirm that the holy words I follow
were spoken by a Healer of all who came,
and I am weeping for a change
in my country’s heart.

James Tissot, “Jesus Heals the Centurion’s Servant”

Prayer for Hawai’i in Hurricane Nolo

Gentle God, you are always found
not causing but caring for your children
in the midst of all storms.
We pray for Hawai’i, the Big Island today
and beyond, for Maui, Lanai and Molokai,
in the midst of Hurricane Nolo,
when so many are still displaced,
and unhoused after Lala.

May there be food and shelter
for those in the storm’s path,
especially for elders in danger,
who find evacuation so hard.

Bless the rescue crews,
those who offer emergency medical care,
those who pray, calm a frightened pet,
tell a funny story, hold a hand.

May your fingers be in those kind hands.

Amen

Homage to Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Earth’s crammed with tomorrows
but every wild tree (or playground, too)
is a climbing place to this hour;
only those who stop, sit,
gaze, tie their shoes
and hear a bird,
or take them off and dip their toes
in warm soil or icy stream,
(it doesn’t matter which).

They choose to be here,
just here,
sketch goldenrod (some call a weed)
for a homebound friend,
risk the capital crime,
of talking to someone else’s child
who asks why, why, why
leaves change color in autumn,

pray for a season of change
in the human heart
at the climate summit
this year in Antalya, Türkiye.

The rest will just go on,
say they’ll stop tomorrow

but, just to remember, take a selfie.

A Reflection on Arches, September, 2026

I have gone to Arches National Park
to gaze in awe at the beauty
of stone curving high above me
balanced by its strength alone,

and I have been to St. Louis and Paris
and wondered at the grace
of human design that lifts the eyes
and frames a piece of the sky
for me to remember,
and portrays the beauty in a city proud
of the way it uplifts people.

I’ve admired the elegant curves
of those who dance ballet,
the extraordinary deep, long joy
of a feline stretch,
the surprised raising of eyebrows
in recognizing a friend or an idea
and the rainbow in the sky
that claims the end of a storm.

But I have never considered an arch
as the elegant repository  
for munitions, snipers and drones,
a molded monument to death and fear,
a looming threat
above all children and adults,
who come to the nation’s capital
as visitors learning  about our country,

hearing the guide say,
“my tour once included a building
where there was theatre and ballet,
but, now please view a new landmark,
the Washington Arch …

that assures us anyone who disagrees
can be shot down.

Arches National Park (my photo)

Reading Matthew 8:20 in 2026

In the small strip of woods
between my house and the town of Eliot
a fox family lives this summer
and we watch them
in the twilight hours
and early, early in the morning.

Tod and vixen and four kits
dance across broken stone walls,
and play among grave stones
in an old abandoned cemetery.

They chase one another and roll
tangled in red limbs
of some fox game of their own,
pull and eat earthworms after rain
that finally eased the drought,
and munch on the cabbage leaves
pea pods, ends of celery we give.

Many people are birdwatchers
in this place by the sea.
Gulls, great black-backed and
laughing gulls,
also blue birds and cardinals,
house finch, purple finch,
robin, jay, sparrow,
who pick up string, sticks,
bits of shiny left out by feeders.

Jesus said to one would-be follower
that birds have nests, foxes dens,
while he has no place to lay his head.

He sleeps these days
in the no place of immigrants
parents seeking or hiding children,
children weeping for parents gone.

I used to think the scriptural mention
of foxes and dens
was about being poor and pitiful.
Now I know Jesus meant
that being together in a simple place
to sleep, play with friends, go to work
enjoy a gift of cabbage leaves,

is the most joyous place in the world.

Photo by Steffi Wacker on Pexels.com

I missed it!!! Annual Cozy Mystery Day …

… was yesterday … September 15 — it coincides with Agatha Christie’s birthday (I will have to admit that I watched the new “Tommy and Tuppence” cast chew the scenery on Brit Box last night not even knowing. )

Maybe I missed it because Maria and I were tweaking the manuscript of “Death of a Scrooge” so that it can be in readers’ hands before … well, Christmas. We are very excited about it.

Remember … you don’t need to read the Rev and Rye mysteries in order. Have you missed one?”Death at Fair Havens,” “Death in the Woods,” “Death in Disguise,” “Death Throws a Bouquet.” Check one out from your local library (request they acquire it, if they don’t) or order from the amazing Brain Mill Press.

And, of course, even a day late raise a glass of (in my case) … ginger ale to Agatha Christie … because an old mystery can sometimes save a life!