Pastors are the persons in the church communities who repeat and insist on these kingdom realities against the world appearances, and who therefore must be apocalyptic.

The poet is the person who uses words not primarily to convey information but to make a relationship, shape beauty, form truth.

The paradigmatic prayer is not solitary but in community. The fundamental biblical context is worship. That's why worship seems to me to be the place.

Yes, and my job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.

The apocalyptic pastor prays.

The people for whom we are praying and among whom we are telling parables are seduced into supposing that their money and ambition are making the world turn on its axis.

I do not mean that all pastors write poems or speak in rhyme, but that they treat words with reverence, stand in awe before not only the Word, but words, and realize that language itself partakes of the sacred.

Most pastoral work actually erodes prayer.

St. John listens to God, is silent before God, sings to God, asks questions of God. The listening and silence, the songs and questions are wonderfully in touch with reality, mixing the sights and sounds of Roman affairs with the sights and sounds of salvation - angels and markets and Caesars and Jesus. St. John doesn't miss much. He is an alert and