Wordtreasure

Joy at Daybreak

Psalm 65

I run the trail before the rising sun.
Cyclists will not be riding up my back
in the bleak early hours when all is black.
Body and soul are one on the run at dawn.
A careful stride keeps me free of pain
for an hour or more. I focus on my hushed exhale
on every fourth step as I master the trail.
Impurities slip away from body and brain.
With snowy cedars in the light of day, my mind
departs from mindful concentration to free association.
Tri-colors whirl, unfurl, flutter in the wind
as swaying timbers mingle with the heavens,
all powder-blue, white, and forest green
for me: delight is color, sun-rinsed clean.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
July 16, 2023

[tanka]

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

we are
and then we are
what others think we are…
unserious children
in the marketplace

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
July 9, 2023

Slow Train Coming

Romans 6:12-23

Bob Dylan addresses this scripture reading better than I can. Click this: Gotta Serve Somebody.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
July 2, 2023

Ishmael

Genesis 21:8-21

Abraham loved both his boys;
Sarah spurned the elder son.
Sarah wanted the second born
to inherit and grow the family business.

For the fair-minded father, it was disturbing
to learn the younger Isaac was his heir.
The scandal of election seemed unfair—
chosenness kicked Ishmael to the curb.

Abraham sent Ishmael away,
but God continued to watch the boy.
The Lord made a great nation of him
and honors his descendants to this day.

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
June 25, 2023

The Birth of Laughter

Genesis 18:1-15 [21:1-7]

Infertility is hereditary.
If your parents didn’t have kids,
neither will you.
This was not a laughing matter
to the old man Abraham
and the old woman Sarah

who tried for years without success
to have a child.
God promised Abraham he would be
the ancestor of a great nation,
but the line dies with infertility.
Abraham and Sarah were astonished

when the three mysterious visitors
informed the wizened Abraham
that he and Sarah would finally have a son.
Abraham laughed,
Sarah laughed,
and God smiled at the absurdity.

NOTE: The name Isaac (Yīṣḥāq) means “he laughs/will laugh” in Hebrew.

Third Sunday after Pentecost
June 18, 2023

The Thing Itself

Romans 4:13-25

When a man loves a woman,
does he love a painting of the woman
or the woman herself?
Surely he knows the painting
is not the thing itself.

When a woman loves a man,
does she love a photograph of the man
or the man himself?
Surely she knows the photograph
is not the thing itself.

Photographs and paintings are representations,
not the thing itself.

Sacrifices and offerings are representations
of our obedience to God,
not actual obedience.
Obedience to God is the thing itself.

Second Sunday after Pentecost
June 11, 2023

davebaldwin37@gmail.com

We Have Questions

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
what is man that you should be mindful of him?

Psalm 8:4-5

Digging deep into a pocket of nothingness,
the Webb Space Telescope uncovers
new stars and new pockets of nothingness.
We assume something is there. Nothingness
is a placeholder word for things undiscovered.

What about, we ask, the end of time?
Logically, a beginning, middle, and end
affects all things, including time
we are told—my personal time and Time
itself. What happens when we reach the end?
Is nothingness just another placeholder?
Dare we assume there is something more?

First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday
June 4, 2023

Midlife Class Reunion

Psalm 104:25-35, 37

We meet again, halfway to the sea;
we touch again, halfway from the snow.
Our disentangled lives have floated free
through range and farm and city far below,
and far away from home. We floated free
within the groove of the river’s quiet flow.
Our lives are channeled—this we clearly see;
our cut of land determines where we go;
but how we go is up to you and me.
Entangled as we are again tonight,
salute the past, then say a last good-bye.
Remember me as I appear tonight
and I’ll remember you with an inward eye
until the whispering river meets the sea.

Day of Pentecost
May 28, 2023

NOTE: I wrote this poem in 1990 for the 30th reunion of the class of 1960, San Marino High School, San Marino, California.

The Theology of Suffering

1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11

Words cannot explain suffering.
Don’t waste your time with “Why me?”
Of the myriad sufferings in the world,

choose one:
the suffering of Jesus.
Then get to work.

You will be glad and shout for joy.
Be grateful you still have agency
for Gospel action.

Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 21, 2023

Paul at the Areopagus

Acts 17:22-31

inside
the stone deity:
stone

Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 14, 2023

The Living Stone

1 Peter 2:2-10

The temple was not built with living stone.
Nothing made by human hands can last
forever. The second temple’s time has passed
after more than half a millennium, as you can see.
The Israelites built it; the Romans tore it down.

Come to him, the living stone, and be a living stone
yourself—in a spiritual house for all eternity.

Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 7, 2023

Women’s Work

Acts 2:42-47

Women’s work: for mother and daughter,
work goes on hour by hour.
They grind the grain into flour,
make a paste by adding water,
and place the dough onto a stone
in the smoky oven. They work to the bone
in the sweltering heat while the men
gathered in the temple are cool and clean.

Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 30, 2023

Metanoia

Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Don’t look back in sorrow
at the wrongs you did to others
or the wrong beliefs you held.
Sorrow is not the ask
of Jesus or John the Baptist.
Nothing you say or do

will change what you said or did,
don’t you see? Peter paused
to let that sink in.
Instead, he said, reorient yourself
to a new way of life, starting today,
with baptism in the name of Jesus

and acceptance of the Holy Spirit.
Some in the crowd turned away
from Peter’s altar call,
but three thousand came forward
and took on their new identities
as the People of the Way.

Third Sunday of Easter
April 23, 2023