My Mind on Shuffle

Grief in the time of vaccines

Jeremiah 8 just won’t leave me alone. I use a Bible study method developed by Grant Horner where I read ten different chapters from ten different books of the Bible every morning. One of those books is Jeremiah and I keep getting pulled back into the eighth chapter. It’ll start off feeling unfamiliar, but about midway I realize that it is the same chapter I have been trapped in when I read verse…

Three years ago I was in Brooklyn Hospital Center enduring what would become a three month long stay. I would spend Thanksgiving in so much pain that the last thing on my mind was a plate.

Everyday I would rise at 6, read scripture, and worship God while singing along with Richard Smallwood’s “Total Praise.” I would hold on until 9am or so when I knew doctors made their rounds, clamoring for…

Biggup Human/Kind Journal for featuring my poem “Splashpad.”

You can read “Splashpad” and other poems on their site here.

https://www.humankindjournal.org/humanities/a-poem-by-chris-burton

Peace!

Really excited to share this video of my performance at Arizona State University. Shared a story called “Backside!”

Watch it here!

My little ones have seen a lot of it for their ages. At least I think so. I compare it to my time as a chaplain at a K-8 where parents would call frantically “our goldfish died and Johnny doesn’t know yet! Please advise!”

I didn’t have a chaplain to explain that our cousin Cam, who my boys just met for the first time at 4th of July, is gone. We just went to the funeral and tried our best to…

Zechariah 10 has been my comfort. A counter to the narrative that faith is anemic in times like these. Some take comfort in criticizing rage and pretend that God can be reduced to a justice less peace. This desire to preserve normalcy, this desire to have one behave one’s self while there are knees on our necks is borne in fear. Fear that your myopic readings of Romans 13 won’t be enough. Fear…

You would have been 95 today.

You would have loved your great grandsons. They have your humor and your courage.

It’s been seven and a half years since you got promoted. I still randomly weep for you.

The tears have become more joyful recently.

I thought about trying to explain to you why I’m vegan now.

I think about how much I wanted to tell you I got in to a doctoral program.…

For Aunt Phyllis/For Mother’s Day

I wish for you to dance again

I wish for you to be healed

I wish for you to feel the wind in your hair

I wish for you to be whole

  I wish for you to laugh

A deep, belly laugh

The kind where tears fill your eyes

I wish they were the only tears you shed

  I wish for you to remember

And feel warm

Surrounded by past moments

I wish for you to feel loved

  I wish for you to sing

Sing a new song

Lift…

13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your…

In September 2001, I was a tenth grader. I remember wearing my black and silver jersey, shiny black jeans, Raiders hat and And1 Moneys. I sat in the back row of French class and remember thinking this is the bluest sky I’d ever seen. Completely cloudless. A few minutes into class I remember the confusion of looking at that blue sky and hearing the worst thunder I’d ever heard.

Once we…

Hearing about COVID-19 is like hearing about a tormentor’s return. It’s knowing you shot Michael Myers but not knowing where the body is. Or refusing to say Candyman. 

This week my sympathy for what was happening around the world became preparation. I wrestle with my fear, read Psalm 91 religiously and wash my hands even more. On Friday I could not place my feelings. This isn’t the sense of…

I’ve let my loved ones know

That in the event I’m on a plane

And think that I have arrived

At the end

I won’t make a phone call

No terror, or reminders of love

No semblance of intimacy thousands of feet in the air

No delusions of a life wrapped with a bow

Too dissimilar to death’s scar

The jagged pieces of lives shattered to pretend that we can ever truly be prepared

Earthquakes happen so frequent

Had the chance to visit Charlotte for my friends’ wedding. I hadn’t been there in a few years, since Coltrane was in the womb. Bri and I lived there until 2012 and previously whenever we would visit, we felt the weight of regret. We’d think about the house we wanted to buy, the lives we sought to lead, the friends and communities we were leaving behind.

It would especially burn whenever we…

It is hard to believe that I have six and a half weeks until I return to work. There’s a mix of excitement, fear, and “today has enough trouble of its own”  coursing through me. Some days I feel bursting at the seams, ready to get back to normal (though there is no such thing) and other days I feel like I have no sauce at all. I had a setback two weeks ago on a Friday night. I felt ill most of…

Most of life is waiting anyway right? Scripture tells us to “Wait on the Lord and be of good courage,” (Psalm 27:14). It makes sense to couple patience with courage because waiting can really weather you. One of the things about illness that I actually appreciate is that it eliminates the façade of control. Things aren’t completely out of your hands, just mostly. I have found myself answering…

Dutty tuff doh, don’t it? Miracles mi Lawd, miracles Memba when we never expect a rice grain Now we plate abundant and water a flow Wha? Unnu think when you pray the prayer of Jabez Poopa Jesus only have material things in fi him closet? Repair better than reparations Forgive without a man say sorry But when him sorry? Bitter tears tun sweet Impossible, invincible things a gwan Like falling in…

To love and be loved

3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.” 4 So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But…