Posts by John Blase

Did you hear the latest from Trump?   Well whatabout Obama?— Whatabout Clinton?— Whatabout Bush?— Whatabout Reagan?— And whatabout that Jack Kennedy?—   Round and round we go naming each bead of the human rosary, each bead once more removed from now. Never giving ourselves over to our life we forfeit the only instant we…

She didn’t say her father died or her dad died. She said my daddy died. That word revealed to me all I needed to know in that moment about a grown woman weeping like a child lost in the dark. She then told me she’d asked for a sign as she stood still by his…

The truth be told – He’d grown fond of them. God admired all His creation, declared every jot and tittle good, of this there was no doubt. But those two grew on Him in a surprising way. God gained the thrill of falling in love. The trespass of trees and fruit was no mere trifle,…

I sit at the edge of dawn prodding C’mon, c’mon. Let there be light. The sky through my kitchen window is blue-black, like a blood blister, like yesterday’s sun got pinched in the doorway of dusk and then all went dark. So, might as well sleep. But now the blister is draining, clearing. C’mon, c’mon.…

She is reported to have had beautiful blue eyes. That plus the fact Flannery couldn’t tell her best friend’s children apart I find reassuring as I consider myself. I’ve always struggled to remember names. And although my driver’s license says brown, the truth is my eyes are blue. I cannot say they’re beautiful. But they’re…

Hordes gather in climate-controlled rooms singing songs, lifting hands, dancing in and out of aisles to fervored pitches. They call it transcendence–bright lights, big holy. Cries rise of “We want to know you, God.” But God who knows all things whispers from the rafters “I seriously doubt that.” They cannot hear God’s doubts for God…

Just a man sitting at a kitchen table mumbling morning prayers while everywhere around him the birds wait for the light. Do such simple scenes keep the world green for this life and for the life to come? Maybe. Though his long-cherished season is still weeks away he listens to The First Noel, the carol…

Before daylight took the stage I sat as lamplight threw my reflection in the sliding glass door looking out on the wide world still asleep. A darker vision of myself stared back at me, dim but discernible. How did I grow so old so fast? Where is the young buck I used to be drunk…

Last night I slept sound. The night before not so much as I woke at midnight sweating over mammom. Jesus said I cannot serve God and It, yet I confess some days this feels tricky. But last night’s sleep was deep with the exception of one trip to the pot to pee in, a walk…

I was raised in the shadow of the empty cross, the Protestant Promise, the only ornament on our white- washed walls. I was taught the why. Jesus wriggled off those rusty hooks then hid out in the cave three days until he was good and ready to resurrect. His followers are “after” the cross. Forgive…