Author Archives: Chaplainmike

Poetry Week: Midday Four – Chaplain Mike

What if I…? by Michael Mercer What if I… When dark and deep prevailed Breathed out an order And light broke through, awakening the world? And what if I… When heinous violence ruled Tapped a lone man’s shoulder And bid him build a lifeboat to preserve the world? And what if I… When self-reliant hubrisContinue reading “Poetry Week: Midday Four – Chaplain Mike”

Poetry Week: Morning Four – Damaris Zehner

This Fallen World By Damaris Zehner I walked every day through the West African town, Rust-red dirt beneath my feet, green leaves crowding overhead. The sounds of chickens and of mortars pounding Marked the houses hiding in the trees along the road. But one day, at my feet, against the rust-red dirt, I saw AContinue reading “Poetry Week: Morning Four – Damaris Zehner”

Poetry Week: From an Interview with Eugene Peterson

Note from CM: If you’ve read Internet Monk for any length of time, you know that both Michael Spencer and I have benefited immensely from the work of Eugene Peterson. For many, many reasons, not least of which is Peterson’s love for language and his insistence on rich conversation as a main ingredient of pastoral work.Continue reading “Poetry Week: From an Interview with Eugene Peterson”

Poetry Week: Midday Three – Wendell Berry

❀ I know I am getting old and I say so, but I don’t think of myself as an old man. I think of myself as a young man with unforeseen debilities. Time is neither young nor old, but simply new, always counting, the only apocalypse. And the clouds — no mere measure or geometry,Continue reading “Poetry Week: Midday Three – Wendell Berry”

Poetry Week: Morning Three – Chaplain Mike

Ecclesiastes 61 On my birthday With Ford and Howard, Boyer, Kubek Richardson, and Skowron, Berra, Mantle, Maris in the field the boys of summer ’61 were powerful and glamorous, unrivaled in the thrills that they could yield. A five year-old lefty I was then When Roger broke the unbreakable mark and somehow opened an unseenContinue reading “Poetry Week: Morning Three – Chaplain Mike”

Poetry Week: Morning Two – Christina Rossetti

Note from CM: We feature two Easter poems today. The first is by one of my favorite devotional poets, Christina Rossetti. We featured her during Advent in 2014, and today we offer one of her delightful Easter carols. As in her Advent poems, which mirrored the “bleak midwinter” climate in which she lived, so too her Easter poetryContinue reading “Poetry Week: Morning Two – Christina Rossetti”

Poetry Week: Midday One – Damaris Zehner

The End of the Anthropocene By Damaris Zehner Picture a car, speeding along a highway in the morning. A voice on the radio is gabbling about some crisis. The driver’s cell phone is on, lying on the console next to her; She’s shouting at someone. In her hand is fast food, Wrapped in greasy yellowContinue reading “Poetry Week: Midday One – Damaris Zehner”

Poetry Week: Morning One – Damaris Zehner

Note from CM: I know this may not draw as many comments as some of our regular discussion posts, but I have wanted to have a “Poetry Week” here for a long time. So this will be the week. Each day, we will publish two poems, one just after midnight, the other after noon. Hopefully, this willContinue reading “Poetry Week: Morning One – Damaris Zehner”

Easter III: Pic & Cantata of the Week

(Click on picture for larger image) ❀ Psalm 23 is perhaps the most loved text in the Hebrew Bible. For this Sunday in Easter, Bach wrote three cantatas on the theme of the Good Shepherd, including BWV 112, “Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt“ (The Lord is my faithful shepherd), his setting of the 23rdContinue reading “Easter III: Pic & Cantata of the Week”