Originally posted at RealLivePreacher.com in October of 2007 I saw him hitchhiking on the shoulder of I-35 the other day. He was walking with his back to the traffic and with his left thumb stuck out. This was just north of San Antonio, right near the town of Selma where the old city hall is…
This time he was under the freeway at I-10 and Wurzbach next to the guy with the walrus mustache who sells newspapers. Hitchhiking as usual. I couldn’t believe he was wearing my red Monty Python Spanish Inquisition t-shirt that my daughters gave me. It was hard as hell to pick him up too. There’s no shoulder…
Near the beginning of the Episcopal worship service we sing a hymn called The Gloria. One stanza from this song has an eerie power over me. Specifically, it’s the last three words that I cannot ignore. Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of…
I am drawn to the mystery of our ancient ancestors and obsessed with their god-like silence. Having no written language they left us nothing ephemeral but instead laid a foundation of guttural sounds and gestures from which we formed our modern tongues. What they did pass on were things older and deeper than writing. Archetypal…
A Jungian analyst I know said giving your dreams a title is an important step in the interpretation process. So this dream is called Yonah and the Winged Lion. Background items: Yonah Fortner is the name of an orthodox rabbi I once knew. He appears in my book in two essays under the name Jonah. We…
If I could hear just one word from you. Just one clear word and everything would change. To hear the church people talk, your words are a dime a dozen and fall like rain upon the just and the unjust. Broken souls who stumble in the church’s back door leave singing their own magnificat and I’m…
I have a problem with food. I know what the problem is. I eat compulsively. I can name the problem. I just don’t know what to do about it, exactly. Or maybe I just don’t want to do anything about it. What do I mean when I say I eat compulsively? I eat when I’m…
I saw a TV preacher the other day. I was flipping through the channels, like men do, and there he was. A haircut with a floppy bible and a Plexiglas pulpit. He was pacing the stage like a rapper, arms moving and talking a hundred miles an hour. TV preachers fascinate me to no end.…
A church man came to see me the other day. A churchy man, an important man in his church. A deacon I think, maybe. He came to see me and our little church. He came to see if there was anything of interest going on here. I was wearing jeans and a Snoopy t-shirt at…
Being the last gasps of my dying competitive spirit Twenty-five miles in and there’s a rabbit up ahead. Some young guy with baggy shorts and a bike he got for Christmas. Look at him adjusting his ear buds. He has no idea what he has. Time for him is eternal and energy is always there for…