Sweet and sour

Sweet home Alabama
may have been the title
of a popular movie last winter.
But that’s really not how you’d describe
the state of affairs in Montgomery
this past summer.
Sweet and sour would be more like it.
Or maybe even hot and spicy.
It’s been a dicey situation to say the least.
Two groups divided over ten commandments
have resulted in one nation, under God,
that is anything but indivisible.
But should that surprise anybody?
Though we admit our trust in Him on dollars
we gamble away in Vegas,
it’s a sure bet we’ve moved beyond
thinking we can publicly acknowledge
our dependence on a moral code
from which our legal system derives.
There is one exception, however.
Those who have a hard time
coming to terms
with the press God got in the past
are content to proudly display
the eleventh commandment.
“Thou shalt not refrain from rewriting history.”
But then again, whenever you try to combine
civil religion with Biblical faith,
the numbers never seem to add up.

Father John

Did Father John deserve to die?
Perhaps he did, the sex-crazed guy.
Just think of what he did.
He betrayed those who had every right to trust him.
He robbed the unexpecting of their self-respect.
He stole the innocence of childhood from them.
He denied them the joy of an unfettered future.
This one who said mass was less than the person
he passed himself off as being.
“My God,” we ask, “isn’t it odd
that one with such a high calling
could stoop so low?”
“No!” comes the Almighty’s answer.
“The singular reality of your depraved nature
is that you too are capable of leading a double life.
The pedophile priest’s deception
isn’t as much an exception as you’d like to admit.”
And God’s Word challenges our tendency to judge.
Read it and weep.
X-rated daydreams, secret thoughts
and scandalous fantasies never found out
cause us to forget that
there (except for the grace of God) go we.
You see, falling short of the glory of God
is a universal story.
And based on the holiness that He demands,
death is the minimum wage.
Did Father John deserve to die?
Perhaps he did, but so do I.
But then, that’s why Jesus did.

Weekly Column Debut: Poetic commentary on current events

In the Golden State
Gray Davis is blue
(and for good reason).
One-hundred-thirty-four greenhorn candidates
are attempting to run him out of town
by running for his office.
In the land of the silver screen
where movies are made,
political campaigns are created
in soap opera fashion.
In these Days of Our Lives,
All My Children are no longer willing
to simply be known as
The Young and The Restless.
From the bizarre to the ridiculous,
porn stars and actors,
bounty hunters and sumo wrestlers
think they are somehow qualified
to govern our nation’s most populous state.
As in the days of the Judges,
no one is fazed by the circus-like ways
of those who lack judgment or sense.
While everyone does what is right in their own eyes,
He who sits in the Heavens laughs
at a scenario that is far from funny.