Crescent Hill Baptist Church

Poets' Forum


Edward Thornton


Goodbye, Charles

by Edward Thornton
I hear you died last night
I'm relieved you're gone.

I grieve all the deaths you've died
since we drank coffee at your kitchen table
forty-five years ago

celebrating your surrender to the call to preach
Offering a future to your new born son
who would not have to say, "My Dad?"
He fixes pot holes on the back roads of the County"

I grieve the death you died
when you learned in college,
"I'm not sharp enough to leave small towns for bigger."

I grieve the death you died
betrayed by those you trusted
failing to be an agent of reconciliation
in factious congregations

I grieve the death you died
at the grave side
your father's first, then your wife's
elders in your old home church
proud of your calling, dead to your pain.

I grieve the death you died
watching your brothers in ministry
go down the road of hate, shutting you out
for not joining their huddles or running their plays
to exclude women, called, prepared, ordained.

I groan for these last months in hospital
where utter fatigue was your daily bread
a poison undetected by lab reports
where morning by morning, you were assaulted
by cheery young staff without a clue
what life can do to make death a welcome friend.

No, I do not grieve your death last night,
I marvel how many deaths it took
to say your spirit dry.


from the Journal of Pastoral Care
vol. 53, No. 1, Spring 1999



Thanks Frank

by Edward Thornton
"Think about it," you said
But I seldom think about
a sermon after the benediction
(except a bit en route to brunch)

You want us to find
"A dark inner meaning"
Did Abraham really
hear God
asking him to sacrifice Isaac?
Would God renege on the promise
embodied in the birth of the child?

What if paradox
is the dark, inner clue?
That God takes delight
both in blessing our virtues
and compelling vice, to test
the limits of our obedience
The thought makes me shudder

"Think about it," you said,
from God's perspective
A test, says the text, to see
if you fear God

Abraham passed the test
for he did not withhold his son
Does God who calls for a son as sacrifice
want his father's sanity
on the altar, too? Or does
God test his lust for fame
by promising, father of nations
celebrity forever?

Is the promise earned by virtue
claimed as a right? No
Righteousness comes with faith in the promise --
purely as a gift of grace

"Think about it"
from within Isaac's soul
Under the burden of wood for fire
he heard his father say,
God will provide himself the lamb
for sacrifice. He watched
Abraham build an altar
and lay the wood in order
Did their eyes meet
as father bound his son
and laid him on the wood?
Did Isaac watch Abraham
take the knife, yet make
no cry for his life, nor curse
at God's dark game? Is Isaac
our model for obedience
a passive victim of his father's faith?

Do not lay your hand on the lad
cried the angel of the Lord
God sees
Abraham's obedience
Abraham sees
a ram, caught in a thicket
and names the mountain
The Lord sees

For us
Abraham's faith sometimes works
but often fails to find a ram
We lose a child, a marriage,
a career, our health, and
protest our failed miracles.
Growing bitter, we do not see
Abraham was child to God
as Isaac was to him.
No more no less is righteousness

I hope you preach for us again, my friend
but not real soon. I need time
to think some more on this one


[A tribute to The Reverend Doctor Frank Woggan, June 27, 1999]


For the Church Staff, Choir and Other Musicians

Vitality came to church on Sunday.
Lots of prayers were answered - prayers for vitality of soul
to match a fresh new body (building)
I could not sing the hymns for the tears of joy in my heart.
Commitment was for real -
embodied ten fold.
And the choir - such discipline,
energy, passion, liturgical depth, memorable witness -
truly beyond words of praise.
Thanks be to God, in each of you!

Edward Thornton, May 21, 2001



I Owe so Much to so Many

I have been fed from fields
I did not till.
I have traveled roads
I did not build.
I have sat in the shade of trees
I did not plant.
I have received knowledge of the ages
I did not research from the sages.

------------ Henlee Barnette

CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425

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