God, I’m getting ready for the children’s sermon,
and I’ve collected the “icky” animals
from around the house,
and I can’t seem to find the insects,
(which is what extinction may be all about),
but I am going for what “unclean” is,
so I need a mosquito with the skunk and shark.
And I am going to tell their parents later
that your welcome is for all
gender identities and sexual orientations,
for immigrants from of-course-Ukraine
and of-course-Afghanistan
but also don’t-we-have-enough-Honduras,
for vax and anti-vaxxers,
and mostly this week
for pro and con Roe vs. Wade.
So must I tell the kids bullies are not unclean
and houses with “white lives matter”
in the front yard
are filled with God’s children?
Should I tell them that I like
the story of Peter three-sheets-to-the-heart
when the clean, unclean dichotomy
is going my way,
or just that the Bible is one-tenth comfort,
and nine-tenths mosquitos? amen.
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Maren C. Tirabassi is a United Church of Christ (US) pastor, author of twenty-two books and workshop leader. Her new novel in the Rev and Rye Cozy Mystery series, “Death at Fair Havens” was released in April. She blogs at gifts in open hands at wordpress dot com.
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RevGalBlogPals 
Maren, you have such a gift for making prayers real and relevant. I love the dance between “all Godde’s children” and “the dichotomy of clean/unclean.” One thing I didn’t catch is “the story of Peter three-sheets-to-the-heart.” Inquiring minds want to know…(and google doesn’t have the answer)!
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cbcruise I hope you get this — I could not respond directly from Rev Gals but this is my own blog. I was playing off the expression “three sheets to the wind” which refers to inebriation (I am a recovering alcoholic so I feel comfortable using it) but that it took three lowering of sheets for Peter to open his heart … and, therefore, if God keeps trying to transform prejudice, we should try more than once with folks that we may feel are bigoted in some way rather than just giving up on them.
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AH! I caught the “three sheets” part, being a recovering adult child of alcoholics but wasn’t sure about the tie to Peter and heart. Thanks for that great image!
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You are welcome.
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