Jim's Poem a Day 2026

Trees transform at the cellular level as they shrink, dehydrate, and harden in preparation for winter dormancy. In this way, healthy tree cells survive even the coldest of temperatures. But every now and then a tree’s sap will freeze and expand, putting pressure on the bark until the tree finally explodes.

The minus sign in front of today’s temperature in degrees Fahrenheit seems like a judgement as much as a measure, as if the thermometer were saying that it’s so awfully cold, we can’t place it on the acceptable range of measures, can’t imagine how it relates to anything like normality. But the weather, uncaring, goes on, utterly heedless of our ability to cope with it.

I asked myself if writing every day was worth the time and effort that it takes or if there even is that much to write about in verse or prose when all remains almost the same from one day to the next. But then it struck me that it’s not the things I write about that have to change at all— the transformation happens within me .

It’s too cold today. So cold the car barely starts. But how the sun shines!

After the storm brought a foot of snow, frigid temperatures have set in—not just freezing but subzero weather that seeps through cracks and creeps in through gaps around windows and doors and changes how we live, how we move and breathe. I marvel at how something that is so far beneath our usual standards of measure— something that is less than nothing at all— can have such a profound effect on us.

Far purer than the hearts of men the snow lies on the ground in layers deep and oh  so white the crimson red of blood stands out when spilled on streets amid the cry and shout of those who work for justice, grieve the dead, and shine the light of love on white and red.

God of Love, Spirit of Life, have mercy on us. We do not know the way forward and we cannot go back. We do not know how to respond to state-sanctioned violence, to armed government thugs killing people in the streets. And we cannot go back to outraged complacency, waiting for the next election cycle to maybe make things better. We do not know how to address crass indifference to human suffering, how to melt the icy hearts of those whose hands bring death. And we cannot go back to mere discussion and analysis, more hot takes that do nothing to change the situation. We do not know how this violence and suffering will end. And we cannot go back to thinking that it’s not our problem. All we know is that, when everything is cloaked in darkness, we must bring light, we must be light, we must shine that light on all the places in our world where people suffer and die, on all the places in our world where violence and cruelty hold sway, on all the places in our world that hurt and need to be h...

Cloud cover hovers like a dirty sheet high above the city, no breath of wind or movement of branches in trees, no sign of the impending storm, no panic amid the repose of the natural world, only single-digit freezing cold and a sense that something is coming..

The big snow storm of ‘26 is on its way, they say— snowmageddon, snowpocalypse, they quip. And I would love to see 14 inches of snow cover all, but why must it always snow on Sunday mornings? Preachers like me, and schoolchildren everywhere would much rather see it coming down on Monday, though school administrators would beg to differ. So, God, let it fall as you will, as it may. So be it.

These trees whose branches wave in the wind up and down our block know this neighborhood in a way we never will. Some have been here 100 years or more, have seen snow fall winter after winter and have felt summer spring forth from tiny buds dreamed of during January’s icy cold. They know deeply, even if we do not, that transformation occurs even now, even in the midst of frigid despair.

Bitter-cold winds blew through me on my way to the car after the board meeting and I couldn’t stop shivering until I got home, and I shiver still just remembering both the meeting and the winds.

It’s  just 5 degrees this morning, and the dog goes out her door, stretches, pees, comes back in, while I am preparing to go out into the world for the whole day. Once again, the dog proves herself to be much smarter than we are.

Sometimes fighting the good fight looks like prayer and meditation, sometimes it looks like protests, sometimes it’s making spreadsheets, sometimes it’s giving rides, giving money, delivering groceries to persecuted people  too scared to leave their own homes. And sometimes fighting the good fight looks a lot like actually fighting.

How we yearn for a nobler world than what we know today! How we yearn for greater understanding of what in us is true! How we yearn to live for each other in a new community of love and justice! How we yearn to build all these things and more for a better tomorrow. And yet we face the darkest times many of us have ever seen— times that call out for grieving and lamenting what is lost, times that call out for committed action more than honeyed words, times that terrify us and challenge us to face reality, no matter how grim. Our task is to hold both our aspirations and our fears, together, not in despair or in denial but in the knowledge that hope *will* return— the knowledge that hope *always* returns, even when we can’t imagine it. Let us take a moment of silence in this place of love and justice and hope to hold in each other’s presence our most profound aspirations, as well as our deepest apprehensions and fears. Together, may we create the Beloved Community, In which all people are...

Snow falls overnight and morning brings light and clear blue skies, so bright it is almost too much for senses muted by quiet cold. I move slowly toward awakening.

Why does 2026 seem like a made-up year number? There’s something, not futuristic, but slightly absurd about that particular mix and sequence of numbers, something, not fantastic, but unreal about its sound and appearance, something awkward and unwieldy. What shall we name this year instead? What name might convey a sense of the year that is taking shape? I’m thinking: “Year of the Worldwide Dumpster Fire” or, more optimistically, “Year of Compassion’s Return.” Or this: “Year of Learning to Love the Broken World.”

Pay the bills, write the sermon, wash the dishes, call the widow, compose the poem, speak at the rally, read the spreadsheet, learn the song, and, whenever possible, find peace.

  “For the rain it raineth every day . . .” - Shakespeare Drench the ground right down to the deepest roots of trees long parched during summer’s dry weather, right down to subterranean streams flowing into rivers, right down to cool bedrock where world and underworld meet in undreamed slumber, where plates meet earth like spirit meets bone, like damp meets dry, quenching all.

We have all the tools we need: plentiful resources—fresh water, fertile soil, beautiful forests, every kind of plant and animal— and so many built-in strengths: clever minds, strong hands and hearts, ability to empathize and love and reason and pause in wonder. Yet we squander all of it daily. Still, when I gaze out the window at a pair of cardinals, I know beyond doubt that there is hope.

Mid-January, a week after Epiphany, and everything seems like old news, even terrible and extraordinary events, even cruel murder by government thugs, even the revelation of God incarnate, even the miracle of being alive and aware.

Let us pause to consider what it means to be open: To have open hearts that feel what needs to be felt. To have open minds that are always growing and changing. To have open hands that are ready to help and welcome all. Let us pause for a moment of silence as we imagine hearts, minds, hands all opening toward compassion, toward justice, toward love. May we always strive to open that which needs to be open. May we open our own hearts, hands and minds to all. And may we return to this place of openness again and again. Amen!

Be more present, be more kind, be more grateful, try not to mind all the stones and briars on the path, all the storms and all the aftermath, and try to be open to whatever you find.

Standing outside ICE headquarters singing This Little Light, something shifted inside and I wept for Renee, who died for no good purpose and joined the dead who wonder why, who were nowhere near ready to go, who would like to become ghosts but are never given the chance, who sigh and sing and wait and wait.

God of love, mother and father of us all, Spirit of Life, once again we gather here as sacred witnesses, horrified and afraid for the future of our country, appalled by the actions of armed and masked ICE agents whose lawlessness has become state-sanctioned terrorism, whose disdain and disregard for human rights and human dignity threatens our freedom and our lives each and every day. We are horrified, afraid, and appalled by the politics of cruelty that scoffs at the very notion of morality and and goodness, that conspires to rule through violence and brute force. We pray for the friends and family of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and widow of a military veteran, an award-winning poet and musician who loved life and whose only crime was being in the wrong place and time. We pray for all those who are affected by such acts of violence. We pray for everyone who lives under threat of death or deportation. We pray for the blood-stained souls of the ICE agents and their ...

No one moves to Pittsburgh for the weather, but it is nonetheless beautiful in its own way, so many unique varieties of gray cloud cover with so many kinds of snow, sleet and rain and nearly continuous shifts in temperature. Blue-sky days are virtually indistinguishable, while no two cloudy days are ever the same.

Just that next step—whether forward, backward or sideways—just that for now. Nothing else is necessary or required, nothing else is even really relevant, nothing else is helpful in this moment. It is the beginning of another new day. Step into it and give it your presence.

Shadows of Veracruz circa 1914 fall upon today’s Caracas, Venezuela, as yet another foolhardy American President imagines that violence might solve a problem that exists primarily in his own imagination, while the consequences are not at all imagined but real and awful and will achieve only hollow death.

Let us breathe into this moment together, experiencing just now, just how it is,  without judgement or expectation, without overthinking, without numbing ourselves— simply being present to this moment and, as it passes, *this* moment, and then *this* moment. As we pause for a moment of silence, may we set as our only intention simply being here now. As we set out on a new year, may our primary resolution be this: to bring more love into our lives and into our world, to create love through our actions and attitudes, to sustain love through our relationships with others, to be fiercely loving in our work for justice, to embody love in all we do. May this love  live in us and flow through us now and always. Amen!