Twelve Enough

KTS54

Charley Eastman and Jonathan Malone

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A weekly devotional. This week Jonathan and Charley talk about what pastors and others wear to church and why. It is not just the sneakers that matter, but it gets the conversation started.

Check out the blogpost that Charley wrote sparking this conversation.

Here is the poem that Charley read:

I am a Parcel of Vain Striving Tied

by Henry David Thoreau

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied

By a chance bond together,

Dangling this way and that, their links

Were made so loose and wide,

Methinks,

For milder weather.

A bunch of violets without their roots,

And sorrel intermixed,

Encircled by a wisp of straw

Once coiled about their shoots,

The law

By which I'm fixed.

A nosegay which Time clutched from out

Those fair Elysian fields,

With weeds and broken stems, in haste,

Doth make the rabble rout

That waste

The day he yields.

And here I bloom for a short hour unseen,

Drinking my juices up,

With no root in the land

To keep my branches green,

But stand

In a bare cup.

Some tender buds were left upon my stem

In mimicry of life,

But ah! the children will not know,

Till time has withered them,

The woe

With which they're rife.

But now I see I was not plucked for naught,

And after in life's vase

Of glass set while I might survive,

But by a kind hand brought

Alive

To a strange place.

That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours,

And by another year,

Such as God knows, with freer air,

More fruits and fairer flowers

Will bear,

While I droop here.

KTS53

Jonathan Malone and Charley Eastman

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A weekly devotional. This week, Jonathan and Charley talk about Holy Week, why it is important and different ways to approach it.

Have a great Easter!

Here is the prayer that Jonathan read:

10th Prayer from Bridget (out of 15)

O Jesus! I remember Your Wounds which penetrated to the very marrow of Your Bones and to the depth of Your Being. Draw me away from sin and hide me in Your Wounds. Amen.

-       Bridget, c.460-c.528

KTS52

Jonathan Malone and Charley Eastman

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A weekly devotional. This week, Jonathan and Charley answer a question by Danica about loving people who have very different political opinions that she does. An important question to consider!

The prayer that Charley read is the classic poem by Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

KTS51

Jonathan Malone and Charley Eastman

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Jonathan and Charley finish their discussion of Mark Russell’s comic “Second Coming.

Here is a link to the story of Perpetua and Felicity that Jonathan mentioned:

https://www.ssfp.org/pdf/The_Martyrdom_of_Saints_Perpetua_and_Felicitas.pdf

KTS50

Jonathan Malone and Charley Eastman

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We are at the second part (of three) of discussing Mark Russell’s comic Second Coming.

Again, this comic is not for everyone, and that is ok. This week, Charley and Jonathan talk about ideas of power, of faith, and witness. No matter, read some comics, it will do you good!

KTS49

Jonathan Malone and Charley Eastman

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Its comics! Jonathan and Charley are discussing Mark Russell’s comic Second Coming

It is a fine comic, but not for everyone, so use your discretion.

To hear other episodes about comics and faith, check out:

Talking Pictures (Without Making a Sound)

A Story… With Pictures!

Also, if you want to purchase this or any other comic at your local story, use the Comic Shop Locator

Finally, here is the poem/prayer that Charley and Jonathan read:

Praise Song for the Day

BY ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration

 

Each day we go about our business,

walking past each other, catching each other’s

eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

 

All about us is noise. All about us is

noise and bramble, thorn and din, each

one of our ancestors on our tongues.

 

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning

a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,

repairing the things in need of repair.

 

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,

with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,

with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

 

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky.

A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

 

We encounter each other in words, words

spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,

words to consider, reconsider.

 

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark

the will of some one and then others, who said

I need to see what’s on the other side.

 

I know there’s something better down the road.

We need to find a place where we are safe.

We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

 

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.

Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

 

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built

brick by brick the glittering edifices

they would then keep clean and work inside of.

 

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.

Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,

the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

 

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,

others by first do no harm or take no more

than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

 

Love beyond marital, filial, national,

love that casts a widening pool of light,

love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

 

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,

any thing can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

 

praise song for walking forward in that light.

KTS48

Jonathan Malone and Charley Eastman

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A weekly devotional with Charley Eastman and Jonathan Malone. This week Jonathan and Charley discuss the importance and the challenges of authenticity. Be true to yourself!

Here is the prayer/poem that Charley read:

On a Columnar Self, by Emily Dickinson

On a Columnar Self -

How ample to rely

In Tumult - or Extremity -

How good in Certainty

That Lever cannot pry -

And Wedge cannot divide

Conviction - That Granitic Base -

Though Non be on our Side -

Suffice Us - for a Crowd -

Ourself - and Rectitude -

And that Assembly - not far off

From furthest Spirit - God -

KTS47

Jonathan Malone and Charley Eastman

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You have questions, we have answers. Some answers, but not all of them. Enjoy the fun!

Here is the prayer that Jonathan read:

Let nothing disturb you

Nothing frighten you

All things are passing;

Patient endurance

Attains all things.

One whom God possesses

Lacks nothing,

For God alone suffices

-       Teresa of Avila, 1515-1582

KTS46

Jonathan Malone and Charley Eastman

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A weekly devotional with Charley Eastman and Jonathan Malone. Please, do not “Ash and Dash,” but instead take your time in devotion and commitment to this beginning of Lent. And try fasting - it will do you good!

Here is the prayer that Jonathan and Charley read:

Catch Me in My Scurrying

            From Guerrillas of Grace, by Ted Loder

 

Catch me in my anxious scurrying, Lord,

and hold me in this Lenten season:

Hold my feet to the fire of your grace and make me attentive to my mortality that I may begin to die now to those things that keep me from living with you and with my neighbors on this earth;

To grudges and indifference,

To certainties that smother possibilities,

To my fascination with false securities,

To my addiction to sweatless dreams,

To my arrogant insistence on how it has to be;

To my corrosive fear of dying someday which eats away the wonder of living this day,

And the adventure of losing my life in order to find it in you.

 

Catch me in my aimless scurrying, Lord,

And hold me in this Lenten season:

Hold my heart to the beat of your grace and create in me a resting place,

A kneeling place,

A tip-toe place where I can recover from the dis-ease of my grandiosities which fill my mind and calendar with busy self-importance,

That I may become vulnerable enough to dare intimacy with the familiar,

To listen cup-eared for your summons,

And to watch squint-eyed for your crooked finger in the crying of a child,

In the hunger of the street people,

In the fear of nuclear holocaust in all people,

In the rage of those oppressed because of sex or race,

In the smoldering resentments of exploited third world nations,

In the sullen apathy of the poor and ghetto-strangled people,

In my lonely doubt and limping ambivalence;

 

And somehow,

During this season of sacrifice,

Enable me to sacrifice time and possessions and securities,

 

To do something…

Something about what I see,

Something to turn the water of my words into the wine of will and risk,

Into the bread of blood and blisters,

Into the blessedness of deed,

Of a cross picked up,

A savior followed.

 

Catch me in my mindless scurrying, Lord,

And hold me in this Lenten season:

Hold my spirit to the beacon of your grace and grant me light enough to walk boldly,

To feel passionately,

To love aggressively;

Grant me peace enough to want more,

To work for more and to submit to nothing less,

And to fear only you…

Only you!

Bequeath me not becalmed seas,

Slack sails and premature benedictions,

But breathe into me a torment,

Strom enough to make within myself and from myself,

Something…

 

Something new,

Something saving,

Something true,

A gladness of heart,

A pitch for a song in the storm,

A word of praise lived,

A gratitude shared,

A cross dared,

A joy received.

KTS45

Jonathan Malone and Charley Eastman

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A Weekly devotional with pastors Jonathan Malone and Charley Eastman.

The prayer that Jonathan read is from the poem “Elegy” by Wendell Berry