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on Holy Saturday: “to death, a sonnet” [a poem]

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

to death, a sonnet

A fear as frank as frankness be
I hold within this frame so dear;
so dear please hold me, till this dark is past
_____— till the darkness passes mine eye.

But to be so engraced I know I must face
_____– and lose-
___________to this spectre this prospect requires.

O this still darkest night, I lie here betwixt
competing rays
__________of glory’s gaze.
One lies ahead; one lies to my face
___both wooing and charming a choice from my hands:

___________to re-seize and be lived,
___________or release and be sieved?

[read my other Holy Week poetry here]

[image by Mark Rothko]

all writings licensed: Creative Commons License

on Good Friday: “Coffee Crucifix” [a poem]

/ Paul Burkhart / 8 Comments

Coffee Crucifix

Crescent ring under porcelain smooth
___stain the wood-stained finish.
______(It is finished.)
___Marked with muddy water;
___mark the merry day; to
___marry the murdered man.

Floral notes in blackened waves
___crash the shore of trembled lips.
Choral bright, in darkest night,
___wake the tone of trebled kiss.

Younger tastes left open-wide; older eyes made
satisfied.

Mark the wood: complex simplicity.
Pierce my heart: storied infinity.

[read my other Holy Week poetry here]

all writings licensed: Creative Commons License

Maundy Thursday, Narrative & Sacrament | Lent {9}

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments


Today is Maundy Thursday which is the time in the Christian Church calendar where we celebrate the institution of the Lord’s Supper; it also initiates the three Holy Days of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.

I was raised as a Southern Baptist in Dallas, Texas. Liturgy, Church calendars, Holy Days, and Prayer books were as foreign to me as R-rated films, alcohol, and dancing. Now, though, as I’m looking for a Church to go to for a Good Friday service, even the Presbyterian church service all my friends are going to doesn’t feel liturgical and structured enough for me. What happened?

In the last few years between going to seminary (and dropping out) and changing churches, I have fallen in love with both liturgy and Sacrament.

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did i miss the “don’t plug in your phone” memo?

/ Paul Burkhart / 192 Comments

Update: I’ve written a comment below responding to some questions and clarifying my point a little. Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

Am I missing something?

I consider myself a pretty respectful and courteous guy, especially to strangers and their businesses.

In my job, I find myself all over the city, and quite often in the lobbies of various doctors and city governmental agencies. Because I’m on the road, my phone is my main connection to the rest of the world (to varying degrees of success. To those that I’ve never returned your emails, I’m sorry, it’s easy for me to lose sight of things when I only have my phone to email with), so it runs out of battery pretty easily (I am, what the marketers call, a “power user”).

And so I try and plug in my phone wherever I can, whenever I can.

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From His Father [GUEST POEM]

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

by Jen Huber

He can easily say what he has lived by:
God and belonging; known from childhood.

He was raised to believe in what was taught
To stand by his father’s belief in his Father
Accept the judgement of another,
The forgiveness of one another
Believing in something unseen

From generation to generation
This belonging to faith has remained
And grasped his life long-lived
And to know that his Father carried
Him throughout his time

He can easily say what he has died for

[image credit: Lauren Chandler]

Free Holy Week Music: Cool Hand Luke’s “Of Man” & Lent Mixtape

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

All of us know that one of the things that can affect our mood like no other is music. And so, to that end, I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite albums ever, by my favorite band ever (they’ve had that title since I was in high school, so I promise, I’m not just exaggerating for effect), Cool Hand Luke’s Of Man.

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Holy Week & Meditations on Radical Grace

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Last year, on Palm Sunday, I got the privilege to deliver a little message to a group of men at the prison ministry my church does each month. I ended up building off of that message and its outline and writing a series of blog posts meditating on Holy Week and the radical, scandalous grace inherent in the story and actions of Jesus over those days. For your mediation this year over Holy Week, I wanted to post these links for your perusal and, hopefully, your blessing.

The Scandal of Holy Week

{i} the forsaking of God | In this post, we meditate on the fact that Holy Week was the week-long process by which everything–from humanity to creation to God Himself— forsakes Jesus. We see that true disciples are not those that never forsake Jesus. In fact, we will all forsake Jesus in radical ways at some point.
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a Philly Holy Week schedule | Lent 2012

/ Paul Burkhart / 18 Comments

First of all, my church has been raising money to purchase and deliver over 1,000 meals to needy families around the city for Easter. They are delivering these meals on Saturday, and they really need drivers for the deliveries. It would only take 2 or 3 hours of your time, and you can pick which hour you begin. Click here to sign up. Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for this.

Thursday: Maundy Thursday Service
liberti: center city, 17th and sansom, 7pm
This day commemorates Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples and his washing of their feet.

Friday: Good Friday Service(s)
liberti: center city, 17th & Sansom, 6:30pm
On Good Friday, Christians remember Jesus’ death on a cross for the sake of the world. liberti will hold a service of songs, Scripture readings, and darkness

city church, at Woodland Pres Church, 42nd & Pine, 7pm (with meditative prelude at 6:45pm)
A Tenebrae service that mournfully observes the darkness of Jesus’ death and our need for God’s redemption (Tenebrae is Latin for “shadows”). Worship with us as our Lenten focus on God’s deliverance culminates in Jesus’ statement on the cross: “It is finished.”
(This is the Good Friday service I always go to. It’s amazing, and if you’d like to join me, let me know. We can carpool.)
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two of my best (looking) friends are getting married today, so I’m shaving my beard.

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

Aren’t they good-looking? (Their dog is even cuter.)

Looks aside, two of my favorite people in my life are getting married in just a few hours. I’ve walked with them (especially the future Mrs.) through a lot and having watched them get there today will be one of the greatest joys of my life. Seriously. Their relationship is a true testimony to the goodness and faithfulness of a God that stays with us and heals us. They encourage me and give me so much hope in God.

Oh! The beard thing. Yes. I almost forgot. They have asked me to play guitar for their wedding. Though I believe they have over-estimated my guitar skills a little, I look forward to being a part of this sacrament of God in such a way.
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David Brooks on “Centralization” [REBLOG]

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

Great post by this philosophy professor in New York whose blog I follow. He points out the hyperbole and absurdity of a recent David Brooks article. I like a lot of the things Brooks usually says, but this is a little ridiculous.

I like the sound of Brooks’ eventual conclusion of “centralizing goals” but “decentralizing processes”, but how he describes what this might look like in health care ends up looking awhole lot like the Affordable Care Act.

Samir Chopra's avatarSamir Chopra

On May 23-24, 1865, the victorious Union armies marched through Washington. The columns of troops stretched back 25 miles. They marched as a single mass, clad in blue, their bayonets pointing skyward.

Those lines, dear reader, are the openers of a David Brooks article about the “centralization” of power in Washington via the “Obama health care law” (whose official moniker is “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”). “Obama health care law,” then, in the next sentence or so, becomes just plain “Obamacare.” Another sentence or so later, as Brooks commences a four-step listing of how “Obamacare” has “centralized” Washington’s authority, we are told about how “Obamacare centralizes Medicare decisions — and the power of life and death — within an unelected Independent Payment Advisory Board.”

At this stage, I am eight paragraphs through this seventeen-paragraph missive, and thus far, I’ve been exposed to civil war imagery, Obamacare, and the…

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a question from a straight white christian male without a voice…

/ Paul Burkhart / 13 Comments

To date, this is the post I am most ashamed of ever having written on this blog. It perpetuates power dynamics and long-held ways of thinking that add to problems and ignore their structures. This post participates in a system of injustice and “not listening”. It’s a profound exercise in missing the point in these issues. I keep it up as a reminder to myself and others of how wrong-headed and dumb I can be. I’m sorry for these words, and I’m grateful for your grace.

________________________

I find myself in an awkward time in our current news cycle. As part of the most talked-about news items of late, we have birth-control (and by extension, abortion), racial tensions over the death of Trayvon Martin, gay marriage being approved and some states and vetoed in others, the health care law going before the Supreme Court, and a Philadelphia ban on the public feeding of the homeless.

Is it possible for me, as a (relatively) middle-class white Protestant male, to communicate opinions about these topics if I don’t share the same sentiments as most others?
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if you’re a church-going, coffee shop-visiting Philadelphian, watch your phone [casual friday]

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

Lookout Mobile Security recently released a study in which it analyzed where people most often lost their cell phones. Lookout has a suite of resources that you can activate if you think you’ve lost your phone. They took this data and analyzed it to see where people most often activate this feature.

  • The number one American city where people lost their phones? Philadelphia
  • The number one place people lose them? Coffee shops
  • The third most likely place Philadelphians lose them? Church

In other words, I’m screwed.

P.S. I’m fully aware that it is Saturday. Shut it.

[Story found via Mashable]

a word on the effect of Corbett’s budget on Philly social services…

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

The Philadelphia Inquirer had this front page article today on Governor Tom Corbett’s drastic proposed Pennsylvania budget cuts and their particular effect on social services.

I work for one of the main social service agencies in Philadelphia. I can tell you that these effects will be real, not exaggerated, and felt by everyone (and perhaps even illegal). Is there really no more balanced, thoughtful, or nuanced approach to this?

In a notable quote from the article, executive director of NHS Human Services, Paul Sachs, told the Council committee about how the changes would eventually cost us more, not less:

 

We will see an increase in medical hospitalizations for the types of problems that frequently coexist with behavioral-health problems, such as diabetes, pulmonary, and cardiac conditions, not to mention sensitivity to extremes of cold or hot weather. And, I am sorry to say, we will see more people die whose deaths could have been avoided…. The governor’s budget cuts will not save money. Rather, it is an elaborate cost shift to emergency medical care and criminal justice systems, neither of which is designed to address the core problems facing these vulnerable individuals.

Please contact your local representative and let them know that you want this Commonwealth known for fighting for the vulnerable, and to at least show a little restraint, creativity, and nuance in how it maintains fiscal responsibility.

Posted from WordPress for Android on my Droid X

“What if George W. Bush had done that?” (Opposites Coming Together) [Casual Friday]

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

Firstly, let me formally introduce “Casual Friday” posts. After all the seriousness in my posts on theology, politics, and such through the week, one could get the impression I can’t have any fun. Well, not so. Whenever I’m able, I hope to take Fridays to write up shorter, casual, and generally more light-hearted posts to talk about news, technology, entertainment, food, or whatever. Probably, it’ll mostly be me sharing some of my favorite things with all of you. Enjoy.

I subscribe to a great service called Summify. It analyzes my social feeds and gives me a reading list each day of the articles that my social graph has most-shared (don’t get too excited. It just got bought by Twitter and they will be shutting down the service shortly).

Anyway, in my email a couple of days ago, there was a link to this great article by Josh Gerstein showing both the (negative) similarities between Bush and Obama, and the blatant and (at times) comical hypocrisy of those that have hated/loved those respective men.

And what do you know? According to the screenshot above, this article was recommended by both Uber-Progressive Glenn Greenwald and Uber-NeoConservative Karl Rove (this was confirmed by each of their tweets). There could not be two more different men coming together to promote the same political article.

But anyway, the article is great, and if it was good enough for both of these guys to recommend it, then it should be worth all of our time and consideration. And as you do, remember all the things I’ve been saying. Like I said then: I promise, I’m not crazy. Other people are saying these things too.