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About Gordon C. Stewart

I've always liked quiet. And, like most people, I've experienced the world's madness. "Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness" (Wipf and Stock Publishers, Jan. 2017) distills 47 years of experiencing stillness and madness as a campus minister and Presbyterian pastor (IL, WI, NY, OH, and MN), poverty criminal law firm executive director, and social commentator. Our cat Lady Barclay reminds me to calm down and be much more still than I would be without her.

Alerting all able sinners!

Both of us – Steve and Gordon – recently received good news from publishers.

Last month Steve received word that Mayhaven Publishing will publish a collection of poems under the title “A Sin a Week: 52 sins described in loving detail, for those who have the inclination and ability to sin, but have run out of bad ideas”

Sinners can order the Steve’s book @ mayhavenpublishing@mchsi.com.

Yesterday Wipf & Stock Publications notified Gordon of its acceptance of  “Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness” to be published sometime in the next year.

Steve’s work is done. Gordon’s is not, which is the bad news, if work can be called ‘bad’, which both of us think it can’t, except when it becomes obsessive, which, in one of our cases, it often has been – one of the 52 sins described in loving detail perhaps!

We’re glad to report to Views readers that Steve is doing remarkably well with chemo treatments having stabilized or shrunk the tumors that by all early reports were expected to take him by mid-February. To the best of our knowledge, Gordon has no tumors but reports that the few remaining brain cells he still has are shrinking fast with age.

All in all, life is beautiful! Sin boldly, and if you’ve run out of ideas, order Steve’s book!

 

 

The FBI and Marmaduk

As the FBI was placing the newly arrested Father Daniel Kerrigan, S.J. in the back seat of the FBI SUV, Marmaduke, the canine member of the William Stringfellow and Anthony Towne household on Block Island, walked to the passenger side of the vehicle, and – as if on behalf of Bill and Anthony and all things just – lifted his left leg on the front passenger side tire.

It was, said Bill, an act of God.

On this day, I join Marmaduke, the latter day prophet. Noting the FBI Director’s meddling in this year’s election campaign, I lift my glass to Mamaduke, the latter day prophet, and my leg to the FBI.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, November 3, 2016

Verse – Teenagers at the State Park, 1959

Chigger_biteThe spring ground no longer was frozen.
We made out on a blanket we’d chosen.
Chiggers bit where elastic
Her Mom thought it fantastic:
“Well, at least you kept some of your clothes on!”

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 29, 2016

Verse – 7 Minutes in Heaven

A party game
When we were 11
A girl in a closet
I was picked to join her
All the 5th-graders at the party
Would time us kissing
Just 7 short minutes

The CAT scan lasts 7 minutes
Feet first I am rolled in
Take a deep breath
Hold your breath
Breathe
3 times in and out
A burning in my genitals

Just like in the closet
With Mary Kay Place

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 28, 2016

Simply Being Kind

If you’re not big on churches, read to the end of Hold to the Good‘s post re-blogged here on Views from the Edge. The author, John Buchanan, is Pastor-Emeritus of Fourth Presbyterian Church – Chicago, former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and recently retired Publisher of The Christian Century.

Family of John M. Buchanan's avatarHold to the Good

One of the occupational hazards of the preaching vocation is that not everyone likes, or agrees with, what we say – particularly when we push on beyond the words of scripture to the behavioral and social ramifications. On occasion, rare to be sure, listeners tell us, in no uncertain terms that they did not like what we said at all. Sometimes it happens during that hoary church custom of greeting the preacher after the worship service, standing in line, shaking hands and saying, “Good morning, Reverend. I enjoyed your sermon.” It is heartfelt sometimes and sometimes it is simply a rote part of the greeting ritual but the sad fact is that we preachers become addicted to compliments however and whenever they come. When someone chooses the occasion to let us know they didn’t like the sermon at all, it hits us like a physical blow and we think about…

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Earth Day 2016 – farewell to evergreens

white-spruce-apThe tall White Spruces that add beauty to Village Point Urban Townhomes in Chaska, MN require annual treatment for spider mites. Without early spring treatment the spider mites eventually will kill all the evergreens: the arborvitaes, junipers, and pine trees.

Last week the arborist who treats the association’s evergreens told us what we didn’t want to hear. Because of rising temperature, the Greater Twin Cities Area of Minnesota will no longer be suitable habitation for the evergreens. In five years they will be dead or on their way to becoming a memory of a cooler climate in Minnesota.

It’s one thing to believe that climate change is real. It’s another to learn of a real consequence that drives it home. You have to work really hard at denial!

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Earth Day, April 22, 2016

 

Verse – The NRA versus the Librarians

I tie some extra large
fruit juice tin cans to trees
in my orchard. The range
where police guns practice
is not very far from
my home. The officers
used their pistols and from
30 feet made some holes
the size of dimes in cans.
Shot cans wave in the wind
and keep away the birds
and thieves who think I’m armed.

No guns for me — instead
I will just use my head…

(Don’t fret, we know that thieves
won’t read this. Reading is too
effete, takes too much effort.
All thieves are lazy — so they’re thieves. Some gun owners are crazy — ban guns.
Let LIBRARIANS judge who can check out guns to hunt or use at ranges!)

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 18, 2016

April 15, 2016

Am I Dying? [written 2014]

Well, certainly sometime…
but I mean, am I dying soon?
like before my next birthday…
or even before I get to make love again…
(and these days, at my advanced age,
that might well be AFTER my next b- day),
and is that a good sign, or a bad sign?

Energy is low, even after I stopped my statins,
(which one of my five M.D.s says increases
an elderly male’s risk of a heart attack)
–btw, having 5 Docs is certainly a sign
of one’s impending demise.

All of my doctors are younger than I am.
Two of my doctors are younger
than my youngest child.
The ages given of the newly dead
in my local paper’s obits are half
older, half younger than I am, usually.

I am writing more verses than ever,
but fewer sonnets–am I preferring
free verse because it is faster?
Am I desperate to say what I have to say
before I can no longer think or speak?

There are times now I can no longer
see the grid of streets (as if from above)
in my home town. I make more wrong turns.
My dreams are more memorable than
many conversations. Nightmares
are more frequent–nightSTALLIONS
chase me till the dawn.

If death is like sleep, will I ever
really rest in peace?

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 15, 2016

Verse -The Strong Man

Inside the Super-Hero

He was strong. Unlike some men his size
power pulsed, constrained–there was no fat.
He stood tall. His eyes looked down on those
passing by who turned and stared, impressed.

He would smile. He joked when asked his height,
“Five feet…twenty!” Childhood awe returned
(big is best, is boss.) Authority
is imposed. The strong do what they want.

He had never been a little child–
young, but never small. Assumed adult,
he was proud to grapple, fight and hold,
lift and shoulder, carry, guard, protect.

Work was good, but work was never done.
Satisfaction was postponed. Trials like
cancer cells dividing, unrestrained,
overwhelmed him. Tasks enough to make
gods despair. Then building built decayed,
bridges fell, and wars blazed in the land
he had calmed before. He went to bed.

The world’s weight will break the strongest man.

Steven Shoemaker, Urbana, Illinois

[Published in Response, Journal of the Lutheran Society for Worship, Music and the Arts, No. 3, 1976.]

Note: Apology to Steve for re-publishing this morning as “Inside the Super-Herod. LOL. Actually, the mistaken title also seems to work.

I’ll giggle tomorrow!

 

colonoscopy-s2-why-is-colonoscopy-doneAlthough Norman Cousins makes the case that humor is good for one’s health, it’s hard to giggle preparing today for a routine colonoscopy!

I’ll giggle tomorrow after they give me the happy sedative and assure me everything’s come out all right.

Written in response to The Daily Post‘s invitation to write something on the word ‘giggle’.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, April 13, 2016