I am distressed by the number of blogging friends who seem in the last recent while to have come to the parting of the ways with their parishes -- and not on friendly or peaceful terms, either. It is most sad. Also irritating--and stimulates my desire to "get mediaeval" on the parishes in question (I stumble about the office muttering, "burn that sucker DOWN... and sow it with SALT... and commit a NUISANCE in the ashes..." -- not really the Great Tradition in pastoral spirituality; but so it is).
In the last twenty-four hours, however, I have come on the total, ultimate, retaliatory curse upon recalcitrant, stiff-necked, hard-hearted, ungrateful, acting-out, terminally stupid parishes.
and it is this--this, friends, will make them rue the day they were born.
THE SELF-STYLED PARISH POET.
Now we've had a couple of innocuous specimens at MH & U over the years -- many of them very elderly, so that one can apply the Nonagenarian Factor to evaluations of their efforts; "Well, Gladys is SUCH a sweetheart, and SO brave, what with the arthritis and the yaws and all...it really is lovely of her to write us yet another poem about the dear Queen, isn't it?"
But I've run head-on into a far more virulent embodiment (rather like running into the edge of an open closet-door in the dark)...
The only comparable work I can refer you to would be the poetry of Emmeline Grangerford in Huckleberry Finn. Or, if you must have your "Canadian content" -- the oeuvre of the immortal Sarah Binks, Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan.
Examples will follow. From the Binksiana. Stay tuned.
And may your parishes, if they love you, be safe from poets.
8 comments:
sigh. I do appreciate poetry. some parish members, not so much.
Oh boy. I can hardly wait. But I, too, have noticed just in my browsing in RGBP the number of (women, because that's who I'm reading) clergy who have either left or been urged to leave or are just waiting for that one last straw. As a layperson in a church with a fine woman as our minister (much appreciated, currently overworked, but we hope to get her an associate soon) I'm counting my blessings!
You've of course also had truly wonderful ACTUAL REAL POETS in your congregation too, which makes the kind of poets you're talking about all the more... obvious.
I stand corrected ... by Chorus ... as usual !! ;-D
we had one - and she was an octogenarian and every month had a poem for the newsletter that was a page long. And every month we printed it.
As for the other issue, i grumble with you.
The church which just forced me out onto the street LAST NIGHT has one very wonderful poet.
And a couple dozen unmentionables.
I'll be needing some of that salt you mentioned...
The equivalent, here hard by our nation's capitol, is those who claim to be spies or something equally James Bondian. They share questionable stories and even more questionable opinions on things political at cocktail parties. Endlessly.
I am acquainted with a couple of folks whose work is really truly Bondian. I know that not because they have told me about it, but because the information came in through other little doors. They NEVER would self-identify, and they most certainly would never tell stories. Because then, you know, they'd have to kill you...
There once was a church in Nantucket....
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