Randall Compton

SERMON NOTES

In a church with an atrium
like a Gulfstream hangar,
ushers herded their sheep
past coffee shop and bookstore,
comforting with Bluetooth staffs.

A stadium posed as sanctuary
with a pulpit like a mound
where the ace pitched a promise
to spot the best me: wanted,
and missing so long.

But the best me loitered
like a lookout man, chain-smoking
outside a mid-western bank:
banshee tires, gunfire,
another town.


Randall reads "Sermon Notes":



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Randall confesses: "Like others, I’ve been troubled for years by the 'prosperity gospel' broadcast on the media and preached in some churches. I’m reacting to the sights and sounds of what I consider serial deceit and distortion—a message that reduces the sum of human flourishing to wealth, power, comfort, and an elevated self-regard. In contrast to Christ’s insistence on forgiveness and redemption of human brokenness, the prosperity brokers downplay the problem of evil, insisting on a breezy, self-assured positivism. I believe the problem of suffering and human evil, of my personal evil, is more deeply rooted."

RANDALL COMPTON lives in Longview, Texas where he teaches writing and literature at LeTourneau University. He has had work published or accepted for publication recently in Furnace Review, Penwood Review, and Concho River Review.