Covenant Shores Chaplain Commemorates MLK, Decade of Blogging

Ed. Note: This post is a contributed story.

Originally intended as a weekly aide to fellow pastors to reference current events in their church communications, but Mercer Island resident Greg Asimakoupoulos has parlayed his advice into nearly a decade of writing, publishing several published books and — this Friday, Aug. 30 — will commemorate his blog with his 591st column, marking 10 years of poetry and musings on faith and earthly works.

Then a pastor in suburban Chicago, Asimakoupoulos said he got his start in the writing life when he was approached by the website partialobserver.com to write a weekly commentary on faith, current events and popular culture. Asimaoupoulos, an amateur poet, accepted under the condition he could write in rhyme. He suggested his column be called "Rhymes and Reasons."  

"I view my weekly poems for The Partial Observer as political cartoons comprised of word pictures," Asimakoupoulos said. "I intentionally incorporate hyperbole into my word-play in order to provoke discussion or to make a point. I am a poetical commentator."  

Early on, Pastor Greg's posts were read on Chicago radio stations. Roger Basick, who hosts an overnight weekend show for the Moody Broadcasting Network, has been reading the weekly poems since they were first published.   Collections of his weekly posts have been published in two volumes "Rhymes and Reasons" and "Sunday Rhymes and Reasons." Both are available through Amazon.com.  

In 2005 when Pastor Greg moved from Illinois to Mercer Island to become pastor of Mercer Island Covenant Church, he continued his contributions to partialobserver.com.  

"I realized that one of the benefits of an internet blog is you can write it anywhere in the world."   

"Some people ask me if I feel any pressure to come up with fresh material each week. In all honesty, there have been some weeks when I don't know what I will write about until a few hours before my deadline. But, amazingly I have not missed one week in ten years. I look at it as a fun hobby. It's kind of like doing crossword puzzles."  

In April of this year Asimakoupoulos was named fulltime chaplain at Covenant Shores Retirement Community where he shepherds a flock of over 350 people on the northend campus.  

"In my new role as chaplain, I have many opportunities to share original poetry in celebration of birthdays, wedding anniversaries, funerals and in my weekly sermons for people who can't attend their local church any longer."  

A sample of his weekly offerings can be found at www.partialobserver.com where his current post celebrates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.  

A King's Speech

"A half a century ago
the White House residents
observed a black man mount a make-shift stage.
And a quarter of a million
braved that August afternoon
to find themselves typeset on history's page.

As Lincoln's marble eyes looked on,
that preacher voiced a dream
that cast a vision few (at first) could see.
His focus was on equal rights,
on color blindness, too.
He called for inter-racial unity.

This prophet quoted Scripture
with emotional resolve
as he exorcized the demons of his day.
A King, clothed like a cleric,
without scepter, crown or throne,
gave a speech that blew the masses clean away.

And now fifty long years later
that short speech can still be heard
in the consciousness of we who share his dream.
It's a dream that's still in process
as we pray "Thy Kingdom come"
and resist the racists' manifested schemes."

This Friday, Aug. 29, Asimakoupoulos will release his 591st column, promising a poem that will look back at the various topics he's tackled over the years.