25 Comments

"How have we grown used to it? How do we dare

to sculpt its edges and frame it with lilies,"

....

A friend and I were having a text conversation yesterday about the disparity between her Catholic Church observance, juxtaposed with mine. I've been part of an Evangelical congregation for nearly four decades and yesterday's service was the most sanitized yet. I went home feeling heart sick to be honest.

I'm so grateful you tackled the discomfort with this poem.

Expand full comment

The cross is SUCH an uncomfortable truth to have at the center of our faith ... and it's supposed to be uncomfortable, and it keeps us thinking and praying and feeling our way forward in our search to understand it. I really understand the temptation to sanitize it and make it pretty! Only, that's not how we come closer to its mystery of love and forgiveness.

Thank you for reading and sharing the poem, Jody. I'm glad it spoke to you. So sorry about the service that left so much unacknowledged; I hope you find a path to deeper worship as the week goes on.

Expand full comment

Such true words. We can only embrace the mystery of love and forgiveness in the cross when we understand just how deep the wounds of Jesus went and how much it cost him. Thank you Elizabeth.

Expand full comment

“Jewel-red, blood-red “

Your poem so illuminated the many gifts of Easter within your chosen stained ,glass window.

Beautifully crafted and spoken Elizabeth!

Expand full comment

Thank you so much for reading, sister Looocinda! 💖

Expand full comment

It is so curious how poems insist on being written once they have established how important they are.

Expand full comment

Isn't that a thing, though?

Expand full comment

I really love the power of ‘How have we grown used to it? How do we dare

to sculpt its edges and frame it with lilies’

Expand full comment

That's the line that, when I wrote it, showed me what the poem was about.

Thanks so much for reading, Maureen.

Expand full comment

And from another Unitarian ... Thank You! You've done it again, taken a symbol and made it holy, made it ubiquitous and made it pretty. You are such a gift.

Expand full comment

Thank you as always for reading, Sulima!

Expand full comment

Like the comedian Dick Gregory remarked: What if we wore a little electric chair on a chain around our neck?

Expand full comment

Right? I've gotten twitchy even about making the sign of the cross when I pray. What am I venerating...?

Expand full comment

“Rinsed in the spring gold radiance that surrounds it” ….Thank you for this exquisite seeing, so beautifully expressed, dear poet of the Avenues!

Expand full comment

It was easy to find that particular phrase, looking at the actual stained-glass; the background is a kind of greeny-gold!

Grateful to have your appreciative reading, fellow poet and Avenues-dweller.

Expand full comment

This came in my inbox just now as I was waking up, and it’s so deep and profound. I’m not a Christian, I’m a Unitarian, but I love this symbolism. Life and death and rebirth and light… now I’m going to read it again!

Expand full comment

I've gone to Unitarian services with UU friends of mine and I love their commitment to stay interested and open to truth from all sorts of traditions and disciplines. Grateful to belong to a Christian church that's also open to that kind of "dialogue," because we have a lot to learn from each other. Thanks so much for reading (and re-reading!), Karen.

Expand full comment

Oh your church sounds wonderful! If it’s not too nosey, what denomination is it? We’re living out in Marshall, VA and there are no Unitarian churches nearby. Maybe a church like yours, if there is one around here, would be a perfect solution. We keep meaning to drive in to our two wonderful Unitarian churches in the D.C. area, All Souls Unitarian and Arlington Unitarian, but the 3-hour round trip stops us. 😘

Expand full comment

Ooof, a three-hour round trip is a lot, even for church...! I go to an Episcopalian church, the US offshoot of the Anglican (Church of England) crowd. My own church is on the West Coast in a fairly liberal Episcopalian diocese (region). The service itself is pretty explicitly Christian; where you get the "yes, and" is in the sermons and in the reading/discussion groups.

Expand full comment

Thank you!! 🙏🏻

Expand full comment

Thank you for your special poem. Life here on earth sometimes seems to be the training ground for moving on. We get so good at moving on that we may miss what is before our eyes or perhaps tapping at our heart, or our soul. Thank you for helping us to stop for just a second or two longer.

Expand full comment

Stopping to notice what's tapping at our heart or soul (or senses) is exactly what a poem wants to help a reader to do. Thank you for reading and commenting, Sandy.

Expand full comment

26th Avenue Poet: I have learned to love your poetry.

As a Catholic, there is much in the Anglican Communion common with the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.

One can love the beauty of Old and New Testament miracles as LEGENDS and MYTHS but LOVE their full force in John Milton, in the paintings of Botticelli, in the sculpture of Verrocchio, Donatello and Michelangelo.

The theology of Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, and especially, Karl Barth (all three of which are best read in German).

Your poetry shows a beautiful spirituality in you as a person.

One aspect that moves me about the Cross: Our Lord identified with the capital offender. Siddhartha shed his riches and picked up a robe to clothe his nakedness: The golden colored robe of a man condemned under the law to execution. In both Christianity and Buddhism, there is an identification of The Enlighted One with the very condemned.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Armand. My own faith is centrally informed by the mystery of the Incarnation, of God-With-Us -- through all time and with each individual, and manifestly at a certain point in history through Jesus of Nazareth. God's identification with the condemned, the powerless, the outcast, the set-aside, adds a dimension of sweetness and "present"-ness to our understanding of an All-Powerful Creator; it opens my heart in a way nothing else has.

Expand full comment

26th Avenue Poet: You might REALLY like the theology of Thomas Forsyth Torrance, late Professor at the University of Edinburgh.

Torrance centers his theology on the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Torrance was so close to Karl Barth, that Barth hand-selected Torrance to follow him as Systematics Theology Chair after Barth would retire. But Torrance decided he would miss teaching in the English language too much, and turning down the Chair at Basel was one of the harder decisions in his life. Princeton University and its Theological Seminary has an institute each for Barth and Torrance.

One very rewarding work of Torrance is, "The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (T&T Clark Cornerstones)". See:

https://www.amazon.com/Trinitarian-Faith-Evangelical-Theology-Cornerstones-dp-0567665585/dp/0567665585/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

And see:

https://people.bu.edu/wwildman/bce/torrance.htm

Expand full comment