rich
(not Buddy though the music’s cool)

if I can’t
know God’s will
though I ask
then
maybe it’s not that I should give up
asking but
that I should change the asking

its parameters
per se
to know that God is there and hearing
and speaking as God might
in large and infinitesimal ways
and
I don’t get it
Well
I don’t
and can ask pardon for my not being attuned
but still wanting to serve

like Merton’s famous prayer
I guess
about not know direction but hoping
that a willingness to travel by approval
might
bring approval
even pleasure
from the Lord who
then
might speak if Thomas and I and all
who aren’t in synch
might go

not recklessly
since
we have our codes and liturgies
for attending and asking
best we can
formally

and then to stay in dialogue
the spirit of it
anyway

to say
like Tevye
maybe
that and to indicate at first
that it’s okay to talk
to ask
to guess and to complain

even to posit
being wealthy people
though wealth is relative by kind
and
degree and following

and maybe
wealth is having daughters and a village
on the edge
and
rich to have our lives in love and faith
you know
by God

c l couch


Thomas Merton’s well-known prayer begins: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe the desire to please You does in fact please You. . . .”

Buddy Rich was a famous, fantastic drummer.

photo by Vitalii Khodzinskyi on Unsplash