POLL OF THE WEEK
Re pastoral sabbaticals:
Every pastor should have the opportunity to go on a sabbatical at regular intervals.
Sabbaticals are necessary only when a pastor is burnt out.
Sabbaticals are too expensive and put too much stress on congregations.
Most professionals don’t receive sabbaticals; why should pastors?
I’ve never heard of a sabbatical for a pastor.

Poetry “for Eastertide”

Jean Janzen


for Lent

Press your palm against the Tree.
Feel its pull toward the center of the earth,
how roots drag through flesh like nails
as earth claims the crown.

Now let the Tree hold you in your
full weight of wrong and right,
your selfishness absorbed by flaming roots.
You have never been so light.

 Jean Janzen is a poet from Fresno, Cal.
and member of College Community MB Church.
“for Eastertide” was previously published in
Christian Century magazine. Both pieces will
appear in a new collection of Jean’s poems due
out this year.
   

for Eastertide

Learn the comfort
of rocks

their condensed
stability

like your spirit
at peace

as you lean on a boulder
in a field

fiddleneck
nodding beside

a cabbage butterfly
floating

from cup
to cup—

Christ unwraps
his graveclothes

slips through
the tight molecules

and sits down
to eat with you