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Month

June 2022

Prayer Starting Day or Night

(x = space)

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Prayer Starting Day or Night

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God keep us

This day

Or night

Through everything

God keep the family

As families

Arranged or redesigned

But families

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Teach and affirm

Our hopes

Our plans

If you speak to us

In dreams

As Joseph dreamed

And Joseph

The magi

Several saints

Then offer clarity as well

The humility

The dare

In hearing from you

And then acting

After

x

Who knows your will

But we must know

Your will

We have your words set down

Help us to study

To inform our prayers

Enlivening the prayers

That do not change

x

Lord, love us

Forgive us

Save us

And spirit us

So that

We might not be led into temptation

We might dwell with you

As is said

And offered

Invited

Forever

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C L Couch

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Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

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2

Special Blue Light

(x = space)

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Special Blue Light

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It was at K-mart

Every now and then

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Every now and then

A blue light would be

Set off

Turning like atop a small

Cop car

With an announcement

Overhead, promising

A treat

If we would go there

To the journey’s end

x

I eschewed

The blue light

Since I wasn’t there

For mysteries

x

I like mysteries

In books

And inside trees,

Prompted from the sky

And when I pray

That is

The mystery of faith

x

C L Couch

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Photo by 🇨🇭 Marcel Gross | @marcelgross.ch on Unsplash

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Sanctuary Reasons

(x = space)

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Sanctuary Reasons

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Through the Savior the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in the Savior you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

from Ephesians 2

[emphases mine]

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A temple and a dwelling place

For caretakers, maybe

Sanctuary seekers

Refugees

x

Shall a holy place

Be a dwelling place as well?

Who’s to say?

We dedicate the space

In the name

And to the credit of the Lord

(perhaps for all we owe the Lord)

Like the Lord’s house

That might be waiting for us

In heaven

In all the mansions there

x

So if we say it is the Lord’s

And go to the Lord for learning,

What are the great commandments

And shall we apply them

In the holy place

And those who need a dwelling there

For needful reasons?

x

To go to with our need

On a weekly basis

And more often for

Needful reasons

Moment by moment,

Considering

Which is

The temple and the dwelling place

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One

Two

Three

Many

All

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C L Couch

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Photo by Joshua Eckstein on Unsplash

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Ant Envy

(x = space)

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Ant Envy

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An ant crawls across the screen

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I haven’t smushed it

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And I won’t

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It’s springtime

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Leave the ant alone

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I know

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The ant is never

By itself

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It’s crossed three times by now

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And I can’t tell

(too dark)

If it’s on the frame

Or does it go inside

Then out the back

The other side

x

Which is a perspective

And a journey

I would envy

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C L Couch

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Photo by Jonas Frey on Unsplash

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Our Days

(x = space)

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Our Days

x

Yesterday was

Ocean Day

And also many people

Many of them

Students

Wore orange not for

Protestants

But for an end

To violence

By guns,

The bullets inside

Guns

x

Two days ago

Was D-Day

When by the thousands

Soldiers landed

To take back

France from Hitler

And the rest of

Europe on

Which he had

Had his eye

And after a year

Of slogging

In a blood-soaked way

Town by town

Bridge by bridge

Europe

Was restored

If Germany divided

x

Days for marking–we

Have so

Many now

With added reasons

Each cause

And each remembrance

Just

And exigent

Even the silly,

Days for doughnuts

And cat breeds

We need the breaks

Sometimes we need

The money

Come from

Merchandising

x

Sometimes we

Simply want the break

An excuse for

Chocolate

Or for ice cream

For a ball game

A parade

x

A walk

A conversation

Or simply

To stop

And think about things

Differently for

A while

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

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2

All Shall Be Well, Because She Says So

(x = space)

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All Shall Be Well, Because She Says So

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I have not talked of God today,

Which might mean

I haven’t talked

To God

As well

x

Dear God, what would you

Have for us?

What shall we do in this

Sad, broken world

In which we strive for joy

And sometimes meaning

x

What can we do

What can we choose

To make it better

To make us better?

x

Now and then

Now and again

Now and for the next time

No or yes

x

Past, present, future

We don’t handle these

We can’t

Maybe angels move through time

To carry news

That’s sure, having happened

Maybe to stitch

The interstitials

Not to fix fixed things

But things that flexed

Won’t change the larger movements

Of predestined pieces

On the table

x

With permission,

Save a few more

From the shipwreck

Withhold the hand

Sooner from abuse

x

Well,

This is wishing

And not prayer

We pray for now

Into the next moment

If bruises,

Not the cause

But the healing

And to break the cause

The chain of hurt

x

And, who knows,

Maybe a prayer

To increase what is right

Because there are right things

Simply not enough

For Earth to turn

In joy

And all our lives

Amen

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Snehil Jonathan on Unsplash

East Anglia, Norwich, UK

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Hurry Up, Please, It’s Time

(x = space)

x

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Hurry Up, Please, It’s Time

x

Time to pray

My God, you are here

Sometimes your presence

Seems so thin

Like vapor

In the morning

Then sometimes a

Numbered weight

Sometimes a fire

That frights

x

It’s how we imagine you

Though you are manifest

As you are manifest

Not invisible

Not hiding behind a tree

Awaiting human mischief

For a peak

You are not voyeurish

x

As it is, you’ve seen it

Heard it

Touched it all

Our antics are not of interest

Unless we should please you

x

That would be

A forest of content

With scenes of love and action

(love in action)

That would delight

In fact

And in fact

Of all the constituents

Of nature

And believers

x

Animals might pray

Might live in prayer

We must talk

Must confess

Must ask

Though, yes, we may

Keep it in the mind

Just behind

Or just inside our tongues

x

You hear us

Remarkably, some time

And every time,

Which is the miracle

The need

Even the requirement

To pray

For us to mutter something

You to hear

x

Sorry

Thanks

Love

Amen

x

C L Couch

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(I take the title from T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”)

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Photo by Alex Wing on Unsplash

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Church Going

(x = space)

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Church Going

(title from Philip Larkin)

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Going to church

A dangerous occupation

Are they like paper victims,

Fluttering

Into the air

Like bulletins

After the bodies fall?

Are they easy pickings

Guns kept in holsters

Where allowed

Or left at the back

It’s church, after all

We keep our eyes closed

x

It happened in Georgia, Texas

Pennsylvania

(Tree of Life)

Now Nigeria

Over fifty died at mass

(defining now

the awful idiom)

x

Did they die for faith

Or were they easy targets

For a coward?

A criminal?

A terrorist

A war?

Cowardice

To take on

A kneeling congregation of

Faith’s children

x

Who knows

There might be justice afterward

Selah

Amen

x

C L Couch

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Nigeria: town mourns more than 50 people shot dead in church during mass

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/06/nigeria-town-mourns-more-than-50-people-shot-dead-in-church-during-mass

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Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

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0

Briefly, the Apocalypse

(x = space)

x

x

Briefly, the Apocalypse

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The circle won’t be broken

Angels will hold

The breaking places

‘Til we get there

x

We’ll keep the world together

Until an ending that is proper

Appropriate for

New heaven and

New Earth

x

C L Couch

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Photo by bhuvanesh gupta on Unsplash

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