Yesterday I had the chance to deliver the sermon at church—if you don’t go to church or you are an atheist or we believe in different things, don’t run away, I am not going to get all preachy on you—not too much at least.

I started my talk by performing The Foxhole Manifesto by Jeffrey McDaniel, because i take poetry with me wherever I go—the point of my talk today was love, as it should be, was of an immoral woman willing to break out of cultural expectations and societal norms to express love & anoint the feet of her Lord with perfume, with her tears—and how she would have worn the smell of her love for days.

Whenever I speak, whenever I write, it is an outpouring of my heart, of what sits heavy on me—most times….sometimes i hold back, but I think it is easy to tell when that I do that. Not that my emotions are always right either—I am still learning and growing—still understanding love. I don’t know that we will ever understand it fully.

This weekend I read quite a few poems on ‘letting go.’ That too is part of love. I am still learning to let things go. Mary and Laurie and a few other friends gently reminded me of this in an email conversation—that I can’t be everything to everyone & that expectations have little place in the light of love. I needed to hear it—because I get frustrated at times, in an effort to make people happy—even if it means setting other people straight. Ha.

Maybe all this is just my confession to you that I don’t have it all together—if you do, well, keep believing that…smiles. I think a big part of love is being willing to tell someone when they are out of line or off kilter. And not just bullshitting them to make them feel better.

This is community. This is life. This is poetry.

What did you learn this week? What is rocking your world? What pissed you off—or made your day?

Grab a cup—let’s talk.