Water, blood, and spirit,all of one accord,proclaim with glory flowing: Jesus Christ is Lord! ©MperiodPress, Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, 2009 I love the fullness of that line in today’s second reading from the first letter of John– “So there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three…

Consider the Lilies is 101 posts old with these lines I now write! I, however, who celebrated my birth yesterday, have not reached so significant a number in the eyes of many. I like my years, though. The cumulation of experience has taught me much about things important and trivial…what it feels like to love,…

Tomorrow is my birthday. Tomorrow night there will be angelfood cake and buttercream frosting after dinner. Every birthday for as far back as I can remember, I have had angelfood cake and buttercream frosting. I find that somehow reassuring. Most other unique celebrations over the years have shifted, adapted, changed, out of necessity, choice, what…

Epiphany brings with it an annual personal tradition. I leaf through my second copy of an old Longman poetry anthology (the first has been read, loved, and written on into non-portable fragility) and find T.S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi,” settle into a quiet corner of the couch with a mug of good strong coffee,…

From pals at Rev Gals “As we look back we may come to understand how God has worked in and through us in joy and sadness. how we have grown against what may seem impossible odds. As we look forward we may do so with expectation, and we may do so with fear and trembling….

I went to Mass yesterday– a good move on my part. I’d been out wandering about without specific aim when I realized it was nearly noon and Xavier was only a block or two away. While sitting in the Mary Chapel, the pastor approached me about how much he enjoyed the Isaiah reading I did…

What Five Things did today bring for me? 1. A day long mental hum of Good King Wenceslaus! 2. A poem for an exhausted friend (see below if interested) 3. A walk on the streets of Manhattan where I encountered a mother trying to apply Chapstick to her kid’s lips and who finally had to…

Written this afternoon for an exhausted friend…heard while wandering the streets of Manhattan…no irony lost there. Invitation Come- Center… center down, my friend, to where gravity falls away into my arms; where efforts to be other are gloriously pointless; where stones still spark inside and rain will teach you how to be free. ©MperiodPress La…