Villanelle for these days, November 2016

When the story turns to tragic
tearing truth and rending bone,
the horde of hearts resorts to magic.

The morning news makes me sarcastic
my neighborhood is made of stone
and the story turns to tragic.

I cannot even stay socratic
I cannot raise my voice alone
the horde of hearts resorts to magic

All our dreams fall back to static
Shining flares are left alone
when the story turns to tragic

The beggar smiles enigmatic
The crows bow west and head for home-
the horde of hearts resorts to magic

The circuit breaker trips fantastic
the weary singer picks a tone
when the story turns to tragic
the horde of hearts resorts to magic.

Lover of our Hearts: An AWAB Valentine's Litany

Valentine's Day is on a Sunday this year.  So I wrote a little something to share with our AWAB (The Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists) churches. It's designed as a responsive reading, but feel free to use it however you like.  

God of every lover.  God of first kisses and last kisses, God of every caught eye, every shortened breath, every longing sigh. 

God, you know our love and you know our lovers. 

Teach us to love like you love. Profligate and unrepentant.

Teach us to love with discernment and grace, with justice and truth.

Teach us to love with unstoppable hearts and a love for our own limits.

Teach us to love better the people we love okay, and teach us to love a tiny bit the people we don’t love at all.

Entice us, entrance us.

Invite us, romance us.

Catch our eye across the crowded bar, swipe right on the tinder profiles of our broken, beautiful lives.  Leave us some secret-admiring notes by that song coming up again in our heads, by that cat crossing our path again, by that wild troublemaker making noise at us again. 

Cause our hearts get tired sometimes.

Our hearts get tired when our friends can’t love each other openly.

Our hearts get tired when people can’t live in the bodies to which you have called them.

Our hearts get tired when hearts break under the weight of illness or hate or greed.

Our hearts get tired sometimes just from living in the world.

Call our name again, Divine Lover, you who know just what turns our heads.

God of every lover, give us fresh and loving hearts again.

(*Feel free to adapt that part about Tinder if that’ll confuse folks in your ministry setting.)