Year: 2022

Election Day’s a Chooseday!

/ Greg Asimakoupoulos
Election Day is the day we voice our values and influence our future

You cast your vote.
You voice your will
with gratitude you can.
Democracy exists because
you opt to take a stand.

Election Day’s a Chooseday.
It’s a chance to make a choice.
It’s a right that you’ve been given.
And there’s power in your voice.

Those you choose will make decisions
that will shape the world to come.
It’s your house (it’s not the White House)
where the fight for freedom’s won.

So do not neglect your duty.
On this Chooseday, choose to be
one whose wealth is found in choices
rather than the lottery.

A Prayer for All Saints Sunday

/ Greg Asimakoupoulos
This week we remember those who passed away this past year

They left us this year
by the doorway of death.
And we miss them, dear God, how we do.
The memories they leave us
help smooth grief’s long road.
How I wish that this journey was through.

But mem’ries alone
cannot silence or quell
the deep ache in our hearts that we feel.
A loss is a loss
even though time has passed.
But admitting our pain helps us heal.

O God, on this day 
when we ponder our friends 
who have dented our lives with their love,
please comfort our sorrow
as only You can
with the hope of reunions above. 

The image that accompanies this post is by my good friend Timothy R. Botts. Check out his website at https://www.timbottscalligraphy.com/

Remembering a Pioneer of Peace

/ Greg Asimakoupoulos
Here I am with Father William Treacy as he prepares to celebrate his 103rd birthday

A pioneer of peace has passed
bequeathing us the timeless task
of sowing seeds of brotherhood
and reaping hearts of love.

He had no children of his own,
but that by which this father’s known
are sons and daughters who reflect
his passion to seek peace.

This theologian, priest and sage
would live to be a ripe old age
and to the end would challenge us
to see all folks as friends.

I toast Bill Treacy’s faith and life.
This one, who never had a wife,
would serve the Bride of Christ with joy
and fill us all with hope.

Peace to his memory!

https://nwcatholic.org/news/northwest-catholic/interfaith-pioneer-father-william-treacy-dies-at-103


Greg’s book,
“Sheltering Grace“
is listed on the
BOOKS menu
at $15.00 from
Lulu Books.

Memories of My First Pastor

/ Greg Asimakoupoulos
October is Clergy Appreciation Month

When I contemplate the people
 God has used to touch my life,
I’m reminded of a gray-haired man
and his sweet, quiet wife.

Each Sunday he would stand to pray
and then begin to preach.
And though he wasn’t eloquent,
I loved his halting speech.

He opened up the Bible
as he made those stories live.
I still can smell the loaves and fish
that boy was prone to give.

He’d shake hands with the grownups
after church when they would go.
And he would call us kids by name
and say, “You’re great, you know!”

Some nights he’d show up at our house
for coffee and to talk.
Or sometimes he would phone to share
a need within the flock.

Though not a theologian
with a long list of degrees,
my pastor grew in wisdom
as he spent time on his knees.

He could comfort folks at funerals
and at weddings he would cry.
When he counseled those in trouble,
he would listen, nod and sigh.

I learned from that dear man of God
that faith is clearly caught
when those who see the truth lived out
can trust what they are taught.

As I look back my heart is filled
with gratitude and joy
for one who led our little church
when I was just a boy.

That godly man and his dear wife
have long since passed away.
But since they led me to the Lord
I’ll see them both someday.

Today’s poem can be found in the following of Greg’s books:


Greg’s book,
“Sunday Rhymes
& Reasons“
is listed on the
BOOKS menu
at $14.95 from
Create Space.

Goodbye Mrs. Potts

/ Greg Asimakoupoulos
A poetic tribute to Angela Lansbury, a giant of stage and screen

Murder she wrote,
but Disney she sang.
Mrs. Potts fit her role to a tee.
(Just ask Chip!)

Yes, Angela had the voice of an angel.
She was hardly short on talent.
This Mame truly could coax the blues right out of the horn.
She could dance and act and sing.

This beauty was truly a beast when if came to hard work.
Mrs. Potts poured herself into all she attempted.
Playing Elizabeth Taylor’s sister
or Elvis Presley’s mother,
she was all in.

A rather tall woman,
she stood head and shoulders
above her peers.
No wonder we looked up to her the way we did
and the way we will continue to.

Peace to her memory!

*My wife and I had the privilege of hearing Angela Lansbury talk about her life and her career at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek, California three decades ago. That was about the time we visited Mendocino (on the California coast) for the first time. While there we drank in the quaint setting where “Murder She Wrote” was filmed for a dozen years.