Rev. Don Erickson

     Xanadu The Long Island Poetry Collective, 2013:  “The Lighthouse” Turning the pages, intrigued with the subject at hand, she speaks to herself and struggles to decipher the vague ideas. Her pencil scratches across paper. She pushes her glasses to her face. Lately she’s been seeing more clearly through these fog-veiled days. She has surmised manuscripts of the precious and the soluble. She untangles verity from honesty. It astounds through the fog.      Houston Literary Review , Literary Journal, 2010:  “…rage Sale” There, the vented and suppressed sell their release. The failed gather to purchase what they already possess. Children run freely through the market-palace, and learn from the formlessness of formalities. Hand-me- downs are passed down. The children reach down toward clouds into the market-palace of buyers and sellers where as adults they choose to be.   ...

"Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had retu...

"The call is to community, the impoverished power to set the soul free. In humility to take the vow, that day after day we must take up the basin and towel."

A Sermon by Don Erickson Delivered at Metcalf Chapel, Warwick, MA Our favorite place to play in the summer was the acres of land behind John L. Edwards Elementary school in Hudson, New York. We would walk down the grassy hill beside the school and then another hill. Both hills in the winter were perfect for sledding but in the summer were merely steep. We would pass an acre of woods, and in that acre of woods stood a tree with a sturdy, secure, hanging vine which we used to play Tarzan, swinging from the tree into the open sky and back again. The mini-forest also included a cherry tree that provided us free fruit in the summer.  The two grassy hills led to a large field of flat grass big enough to fit its two baseball fields now no longer there. We boys in the neighborhood used regularly those fields in the summer and into fall. Our favorite of the two fields was the one whose right field ended in a running stream. The stream separated the field from more acres of woods. ...