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
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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
reader response
blue to gray
sorry
it was a pleasant day
with winter weather in the fifties
to encourage going out
for
the day if
not
to ski
we’re in the East
sorry again
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(reader-response is a way to describe the process of getting into a book or anything with text; we read and then respond and how we respond by what we read and who we are is, well, important, ‘cause it is; here for a graduate-student lark, I’m applying the notion to reading the day and then responding, reader response to weather, as it were)
photo by Kourosh Qaffari on Unsplash
a freeing prayer
honestly
for
today by yesterday
and with a hope against
tomorrow
I can’t breathe
and
I can breathe poorly
while I hope you might regenerate
inhale
and exhale
by nature and by spirit
and
how all might work together
toward a happiness
from you
and then like angels
seek and take
our
earnest assignments
open
anywhere
and so
plea
prayer
toward affirmation that we’re made and that
we’re sent like missions
in love
inside
outside
growing
to reconnoiter
(Joshua and Caleb)
then
to service
fixing
a breaking world
by action understood
and
or
by stillness of hearts
amen
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(I’m afraid the state of my poor breathing is both earthly and spiritual; maybe you in the world with me have your ongoing challenges, labors from challenges as well)
photograph by Josh Applegate via Unsplash
unbelieving Sunday best
I
think I should go
I have some coffee
to ready me
chemically
and maybe throw enough together
there is hot water
with some handsoap
nearby
and clothes
that should pass muster
one
more time
and so acceptably for an hour or so
then
back to exile
and the loneliness
but have had the hour
for faith and companionship
while keep
the faith
let go of the rest
as illusion
I
belong
enough to hope to find
other
than I the healthy
perfect you
and
if unbeknownst
you could leave with me
then
who knows
sometimes I could enter
faith and love
not needing to believe in these
or
that they are for you
yet also
me
coda
sip the coffee then
ten minutes to get ready
ten to get there
eight
and eight
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photo by Creab ThePolymath on Unsplash
Accra
it’s day though so dark
taking sun and then moonlight
need new ways to see
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photo by Josep Martins on Unsplash
more: https://gumroad.com/josepmartins [from the photographer]
Barcelona, Spain
psalmist confusion
so we look to the hills
not because God’s there
rather
because God is everywhere
yet
looking to the hill
is a relief
and sometimes romance of a surprise
that help we need appears
into the troubled valley where
we try to keep
our
something good
or at all
going
so to look anywhere or
look inside
not because we save ourselves but
because
we may confess and not look for God
for
knowing openly
that God is here already
to rescue even or
otherwise
to
provide
you know
by the rim or by the valley
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Psalm 121
121 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
2 My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
(KJV)
photo by Alin Gavriliuc on Unsplash
untimed or mistimed time for prayer
(maybe in broken time)
God
I’m sorry
and I love you
not
sorry that I love you
and
you know what I mean
so that
should I need to say
and yet
the saying
matters
it’s on all the papers distributed
at church
so our participation
then
seems to be important
an issue of the following
to say
that we should say
or maybe think along
shall do
not
as a riddle or another game
but interaction
that is
serious as
sin
more so redemption
also
to pray for peace
from any state
of
readiness to ask or even
pledge a plan
we may or may not
have
ready to go
God
be with us wherever or
whenever
might
have to be as good as it gets
though
it’s in our purview alone to be thankful
for
small favors
while you have
the everything of everything to
care for
and to manage and should
our
words
ever mean so much
and
yet for love
and habit in the faith
it seems we carry
off
some
meaning in our making
and then our expressing
with
intention
as I
or we offer to you
now
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photo by Eugene Tkachenko on Unsplash
Egypt
the all right in the worst of us
what may I say
that
isn’t I love you
or
is everything a variation
of these words and
all
the meaning
even should I speak of
God and
then more so os love
to say
Swtzerland
Venezuela
Somali
Ukraine
Gaza
more names and let
the people mean more than the places
closer in
my mildewed apartment
and what is happening with
you
the worse things are happening
around
with concomitant escapes attempt
that
because there is a rim ‘round Earth
the tries do not succeed
except sometimes
in
ultimate
destruction
the kind I shouldn’t wish on
anyone
certainly not
on you
for you
rather
I wish for fullness
living
breathing
as we may
by love with each other
practical and
difficult
sometimes expressing
and
enacting
and yet
of course
worthwhile to try
reconciliation
we have such need in
the world
if
we could only stop the killing
and blaming for the killing
on
anyone but the enactors
who
can be ourselves
perhaps
and should we kill
then what
to believe
it’s over
and
God is reasonable to respond not
so
as there’s hope in belief
and grace remains
free
as freely given
so receive
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photo by Danny Greenberg on Unsplash
all is bias
(all is leaning)
the eyes are too big
in
the portrait
but
everything is bias
everyone
we lean
as the body’s not symmetric
neither are we
in
our views and
causes
and this is what we have
with
no objectivity
rather
wondrous in diversity
no weight to give to false claims
of
reference or authority based
on who we’re not
and
how the world
isn’t
find and claim
our bias
let it matter
then
together
all our views with all our
angles
add up to three-sixty of a planet
of ourselves
and
yes
to know the cosmos better
in the health of all
pluralities
nothing to win
or lie
rather
let an honest process have us understand
express
and progress
toward what’s distinct
and
what’s the same in
us
as
well
everything
when bias is applied
of course
to gain points
or
win the day
we could lie about our biases
to say
I’m with you when
not
as in
politics
or the political
way
to accomplish
anything
until it changes is made
up
and for a style of
lies
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photograph by Juan Cruz Mountford at Unsplash
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