Ink on skin.
It's a name,
It's a memory,
It's a place,
It's all the time between the past and the future, it’s now.
Words etched forever,
A place to rest;To be,
To talk,
To sleep in silence,
And wake to the sun.
Skin on skin,
Ink on skin.Saturday, July 30, 2011
The Parking Spot...
Skin on skin.
Ink on skin.
It's a name,
It's a memory,
It's a place,
It's all the time between the past and the future, it’s now.
To be,
To talk,
To sleep in silence,
And wake to the sun.
Ink on skin.
It's a name,
It's a memory,
It's a place,
It's all the time between the past and the future, it’s now.
To be,
To talk,
To sleep in silence,
And wake to the sun.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Augustine & Sexuality - A Question...
Because Augustine felt guilt and shame over or due to his sexuality does that then mean that all those in the western Christian tradition have to bear the consequences of his conclusions and subsequent actions?
Brian McLaren on Premarital Sex...
Q & R: Let's talk about premarit - Brian McLaren
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Gay & Christian - A Letter...
Who Would Dare Argue This Gay Man Isn't Christian? | JohnShore.com
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Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
My Place Today...
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"So this is how the story went..."
"So this is how the story went
I met someone by accident
That blew me away
That blew me away
It was in the darkest of my days
When you took my sorrow and you took my pain
And buried them away, you buried them away
And I wish I could lay down beside you
When the day is done
And wake up to your face under the morning sun.."
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Siobhan...
"Waking in the morning
To the feeling of her fingers on my skin
Wiping out the traces of the people
And the places that I've been."
"She ain't ashamed to be a woman
Or afraid to be a friend
I don't know the answers to the easy way
She's opened every door in my mind."
"Loving her was easier
Than anything I'll ever do again..."
All Journeys Are Risks...
"You're soft as glass
and I'm a gentle man;
we got the sky to talk about
and the earth to lie upon."
~ Townes Van Zandt
You have to fill the voids left by emptiness and loss
Fill them, fill them,
With new love, and experience even if one day they too may leave a void,
(That is hard to swallow)
We all leave voids, create spaces and those that fill them are healed and those that don’t become bitter, sad and lonely.
All journeys are risks.
"We all got holes to fill
them holes are all that's real.
Some fall on you like a storm,
sometimes you dig your own.
The choice is yours to make,
time is yours to take;
some sail upon/dive into the sea,
some toil upon the stone."
them holes are all that's real.
Some fall on you like a storm,
sometimes you dig your own.
The choice is yours to make,
time is yours to take;
some sail upon/dive into the sea,
some toil upon the stone."
~ Townes Van Zandt
What Is This Blog About?
My blog is not specifically about God, or for that matter not only about grace. As I had hoped would become evident over time and in the choice of the name “A Cup of Grace” that it would be and become about life, even the life that can be experienced in enjoying a cup of coffee on a beautiful morning – alone or with a person, “…as good as spring itself…”. Whatever it may be that gets you through difficult times, what allows grace to seep into a particular darkness or sadness. And, also whatever it is that allows you to celebrate happiness and good times and be able to be thankful for grace in those moments of equilibrium and peace.
A cup of coffee was at a time in my life a literal manifestation of grace and has now become a metaphor for any and all grace filled experiences.
So what is this blog about or what has it become to be about?
In its simplest it is an expression of my life, a place to speak what I feel and know (at least in part) and as a result it has been a source of reflection, healing and grace. In being those things for me I hope that it has and will touch others as we navigate together our journey’s – as we form friendships, fellowships and communities we can share and move with each other and be fully alive human beings.
“A Cup of Grace” is a place to encounter life and life in all its entirety, to be human in all of what that may mean: love, loss, joy, pain, hurt, celebration, new friends, old friends, lovers, confidants, betrayers, acquaintances, strangers passed by on the street – the time spent in a kiss and the time between kisses, a pint of beer or a glass of wine, acceptance, forgiveness, distance, closeness, bodies bare, naked humanity, imprinted with the image of God – relationship.
It is my desire to give some sort of expression to all of these things through words, pictures, movies, art, poetry, music, silence, and sound, and in doing so to create and share a life worth living soaked in grace.
A cup of coffee was at a time in my life a literal manifestation of grace and has now become a metaphor for any and all grace filled experiences.
So what is this blog about or what has it become to be about?
In its simplest it is an expression of my life, a place to speak what I feel and know (at least in part) and as a result it has been a source of reflection, healing and grace. In being those things for me I hope that it has and will touch others as we navigate together our journey’s – as we form friendships, fellowships and communities we can share and move with each other and be fully alive human beings.
“A Cup of Grace” is a place to encounter life and life in all its entirety, to be human in all of what that may mean: love, loss, joy, pain, hurt, celebration, new friends, old friends, lovers, confidants, betrayers, acquaintances, strangers passed by on the street – the time spent in a kiss and the time between kisses, a pint of beer or a glass of wine, acceptance, forgiveness, distance, closeness, bodies bare, naked humanity, imprinted with the image of God – relationship.
It is my desire to give some sort of expression to all of these things through words, pictures, movies, art, poetry, music, silence, and sound, and in doing so to create and share a life worth living soaked in grace.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Peter Rollins: On time travel, love and changing the past...
"By recording these moments we attempt to do more than merely capture some manifest event; we seek to capture the unseen love that is present in that moment. The illusive X that provides those times with their literary, magical and sublime form. Each time we look at these records we ‘see’ that sacred X shine forth and are enlivened by it."
Read more here: http://peterrollins.net/?p=2878
Read more here: http://peterrollins.net/?p=2878
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Scot McKnight - Jesus Creed: Tom Wright on Scripture and God's Authority.
Tom Wright, Scripture and God’s Authority | Jesus Creed
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Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Ascribe...A Poem by Karen Bowlby
“I believe in God.
Not just any God –
Not that anything goes,
Spiritual but not religious,
Politically correct,
Don’t want to offend anyone
Anything but the God you think of when I say God -
You know – the one that hates abortion,
Fags, and anyone different
No – I believe in that God
The God
The one who did the whole Jesus-thing,
The one that beget all the Bible-beaters, and Republicans
That God, that’s the one.
And perhaps that doesn’t strike you as odd.
After all, you –
All of you
Every single one of you looking me in the eyes right now
Just judged me
Sized me up -
Little white girl, privileged,
Easy for her to stand there,
Say she believes in that God
Hell, people like her created that God,
Created Him to keep other people in their place,
She’s one of them, that makes sense
And it would make sense
It did make sense – for about 28 years
And then it stopped making sense
Right about the same day I came out
Caught the gay
The homo-sexuality
Years in the making, but nothing unusual there
Just another dyke with a story
Except…
I still believe in God
Yeah – in that God,
And that makes my life uneasy,
Dissonant,
And I try to find ways to ease that dissonance
I lie
I hide
And I reason that everyone lies and hides to a degree anyway
But then I hear God
Feel him walking through the garden in the cool of the evening
And I feel Him see me
Sense His eyes piercing through me into my soul -
The one thing I can’t find on my own,
And it’s probably a good thing that I can’t, cause I’d hide that, too,
And I shift in my hiding place
Nervous
Awaiting a verdict I’ve spent my whole life preparing for
And then I feel him open his mouth
Take a deep breath
I brace for impact and hear
“It is good”
Stunned, speechless,
These are the moments I look around
Thinking He must have made a mistake
Perhaps He doesn’t see so well these days
He is, after all,
Millenniums old,
And I am, after all,
A lesbian
Dyke
Queer
And so these are also the moments I protest
I point out what everyone else seems to know
Everyone but Him
And He speaks again
“You are good”
“Lovely”
And I laugh
I argue
I quote those verses – His words, not mine
Leviticus,
Sodom and Gomorrah
But He doesn’t respond
And I always, always think –
“See?”
I’ve won.
Here in the garden, in my nakedness,
I have argued with the Creator of the Universe
And I have won
And He laughs
He hears my thoughts
And He moves towards me,
Closer,
Arms outstretched
And I protest
I protest –
He is God – and I am… nothing.
Filthy.
Dirty.
Sin.
And He speaks
“You are good”
And I question if He forgot that I come from
Dust
These are the moments I look down
I can not meet His eyes,
But I can feel His touch
Everywhere in my nakedness – but no longer naked
Fully-clothed,
Status-restored
And I wonder what it means about
Who I thought He was
And who He is
And if He also gets tired of
The labels
The words
The actions
The hate
We ascribe as His.”
Much love.
Find more poems from Karen at Deviant Poems - http://kbowlby.blogspot.com/
Not just any God –
Not that anything goes,
Spiritual but not religious,
Politically correct,
Don’t want to offend anyone
Anything but the God you think of when I say God -
You know – the one that hates abortion,
Fags, and anyone different
No – I believe in that God
The God
The one who did the whole Jesus-thing,
The one that beget all the Bible-beaters, and Republicans
That God, that’s the one.
And perhaps that doesn’t strike you as odd.
After all, you –
All of you
Every single one of you looking me in the eyes right now
Just judged me
Sized me up -
Little white girl, privileged,
Easy for her to stand there,
Say she believes in that God
Hell, people like her created that God,
Created Him to keep other people in their place,
She’s one of them, that makes sense
And it would make sense
It did make sense – for about 28 years
And then it stopped making sense
Right about the same day I came out
Caught the gay
The homo-sexuality
Years in the making, but nothing unusual there
Just another dyke with a story
Except…
I still believe in God
Yeah – in that God,
And that makes my life uneasy,
Dissonant,
And I try to find ways to ease that dissonance
I lie
I hide
And I reason that everyone lies and hides to a degree anyway
But then I hear God
Feel him walking through the garden in the cool of the evening
And I feel Him see me
Sense His eyes piercing through me into my soul -
The one thing I can’t find on my own,
And it’s probably a good thing that I can’t, cause I’d hide that, too,
And I shift in my hiding place
Nervous
Awaiting a verdict I’ve spent my whole life preparing for
And then I feel him open his mouth
Take a deep breath
I brace for impact and hear
“It is good”
Stunned, speechless,
These are the moments I look around
Thinking He must have made a mistake
Perhaps He doesn’t see so well these days
He is, after all,
Millenniums old,
And I am, after all,
A lesbian
Dyke
Queer
And so these are also the moments I protest
I point out what everyone else seems to know
Everyone but Him
And He speaks again
“You are good”
“Lovely”
And I laugh
I argue
I quote those verses – His words, not mine
Leviticus,
Sodom and Gomorrah
But He doesn’t respond
And I always, always think –
“See?”
I’ve won.
Here in the garden, in my nakedness,
I have argued with the Creator of the Universe
And I have won
And He laughs
He hears my thoughts
And He moves towards me,
Closer,
Arms outstretched
And I protest
I protest –
He is God – and I am… nothing.
Filthy.
Dirty.
Sin.
And He speaks
“You are good”
And I question if He forgot that I come from
Dust
These are the moments I look down
I can not meet His eyes,
But I can feel His touch
Everywhere in my nakedness – but no longer naked
Fully-clothed,
Status-restored
And I wonder what it means about
Who I thought He was
And who He is
And if He also gets tired of
The labels
The words
The actions
The hate
We ascribe as His.”
Much love.
Find more poems from Karen at Deviant Poems - http://kbowlby.blogspot.com/
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Henry Nouwen on Friendship...
"The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
~ Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Road to Daybreak)
~ Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Road to Daybreak)
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