Category: Poetry

Art, Conflict, Disappointment, Hope, humanity, Love, Memory, Narrative, Poetry, Songwriting, Suffering, Theology, Writing1 Comment

Reality

Gary Furr

Someone asked me for this short paragraph from my sermon yesterday. I thought I might as well share it with you all, for what it’s worth. I was focused on the 23rd chapter of Jeremiah, which speaks of the challenges of leadership and the power of the Living God to help us.  I said, toward the end, these words: “There is always hope, but it never comes without cost or pain or struggle. There is always a future, but never at the expense of our past. There is always Presence, but it is not always comforting and pleasant. There is … Continue reading Reality

Christmas, Holly Week, Hope, humanity, Jesus, Pilgrimage, Poetry, spirituality, Theology, Theology and Life, Writing

Call and Response: Excerpt from Poems, Prayers and Unfinished Promises

Gary Furr

In December, Mossy Creek Press released my new book, Poems, Prayers and Unfinished Promises.  I have been so gratified by the readers’ enthusiastic responses.  From time to time, I want to share a few excerpts with readers.  Since we are in the Lenten Season, I share this prayer, found on page 48:

A Prayer for the Beginning of Lent

Based on Psalm 42:8-11COVER PIC jpg

As a Baptist kid in the South, I had never heard of Lent, but I understood “call and response” instinctively. Someone sings and you sing back to them. In southern gospel, it was often something the basses and altos did, little descants under the melody, like a man and woman when they really speak and hear each other’s hearts. That’s the Lenten journey to me—get quiet, listen and when you finally pick up the song, sing back. You really have to train your ear to hear it.

“By day the LORD commands his steadfast love and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?” Why are you cast down, O my soul and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”  Psalm 42:8-11 NRSV

 

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Death, Hope, Literature, Love, Memory, Poetry, Theology and Life, Writing5 Comments

Say Hello to Porky for Me…

Gary Furr

In 2001 I was invited to speak at my college, which fulfilled a dream from my college days.   It was, in fact, a “two-fer,” since I was a co-presenter with Dr. Milburn Price for the Ball Institute AND spoke in the chapel.  When I was a student, I heard speakers who impressed me mighty well—Dr. Frederick Sampson, a magnificent preacher who held us spellbound for 65 minutes one day, the great Grady Nutt, and others.  I imagined that I might someday, after graduate work, be important enough to come back and be one of those speakers.  Now it was at … Continue reading Say Hello to Porky for Me…

Death, Poetry, Suffering, Theology and Life, Writing

The Day Alabama Almost Died by Gary Furr Remembering April 27, 2011

Gary Furr

Video still suspended on the internet, weathermen almost screaming fear and warning, Maps lit up with horrible storms, bright, rotating monsters And the skycams filming it Dark rumbling cone of cloud, wider and firmer, roaring down, Swallowing places we all recognized, this street corner, that road, this hospital and the University itself Gobbled into darkness We sat watching helplessly in what passes for our safe place Terrified for people we know and can’t call or get to Just sat there, watching, listening, praying in a basement or a closet Now it lives on YouTube and in children’s nightmares Fear comes … Continue reading The Day Alabama Almost Died by Gary Furr Remembering April 27, 2011