(x = space)
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Wonderful Counselor
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Should we meet with God
I shall be glad
I might become chagrined
At what God will tell you
While I’m there
But I’m sure the conversation
Will be necessary
There might be understanding and
Reconciliation
Our lives on Earth an untrue experience
Now washed and cleared
The dark glass clean
Through which, if we all will,
All forgiven
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C L Couch
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Photo by Susan Mohr on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Prized
x
God’s will
I treat it like a puzzle
A mystery
A riddle
x
The prize
For being smart enough
For endurance
For cleverness I don’t really possess
Is success and later on
Salvation
I win at last
x
Except I think, liturgically,
That the truth is not in me
Or anyone who thinks and contrives
Philosophy this way
x
God is not a puzzle
(I like puzzles
and I hope you do)
There is a clarity
Like the still waters
God takes us beside
Willing
To point out the deep parts
x
Skywriting isn’t necessary
(relief for Dorothy)
Read the code for life inside the books
Or listen
Listen, anyway
It’s easy
As it’s easy
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There are commandments
There are two prioritized
There is a parable of sheep and goats
(poor goats)
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These are enough
To take us through the day
A season
A life
And should we like to choose
Life after
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Mysticism, symbolism
Are for other verses
So to coin a phrase
That serves the here and now
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That’s all, folks
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C L Couch
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Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Contemplatives Are Due on Maple Street
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God speaks to me each day, though
I must admit
II don’t know what that means
I mean
Sometimes I hear the words
Sometimes it’s a nudge
I suppose a shove would be too much
I’d lose the love in that
And think it
Something else with chagrin
(and from the gravel)
x
I’d like to be an everyday sort of mystic
The kind a hobbit might accept
Have food,
A glass of wine,
Smoke a pipe
Then listen for the words that the
Spirit dictates
And hope I’m not sent to Mordor
On assignment
x
A contemplative with wide windows
Sunlight, nighttime
Time for clouds
All through which to contemplate
World enough and time
As the saying goes
From Andrew Marvell’s poem
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This would do for a style
It would keep me in the suburbs
Or small towns,
In cities or on farms or
Or in other places near
Or far away
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C L Couch
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(x = space)
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Impromptu Earth
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What is needed
For the timing, Lord?
Order or chaos
Either has its charms
The opposite of order
Is nihilo
x
Creation can be wild,
Order can go crazy,
Chaos the odd anchor
Keeps us safe
x
Is it a magic thing
Or science?
These and more
Are real
x
We need chaos
God allows:
Sarah laughing
When a pregnancy announced,
Leaving fire
Or clouds to show the way,
Accepting
Ravens bringing bread
So the prophet lives
To challenge bastions
x
Responding
To the r.s.v.p.,
Jesus cooking fish
At the shore
x
I know the void
You know
We call it chaos
In translation
Maybe there are biases
x
Maybe like weekly money
We children benefit
From allowances
x
From contraries
That complement
Our sure things and
Our mysteries
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C L Couch
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Photo by Nikolay Hristov on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Pilotless Wheel
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God is great
Traditions affirm
Many of them
Most of the living world
And the world before
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God is good
A source of mercy
Even for
Those who do not know
Those who deny
Given space and time
Mercy in these
x
But, God, what kind of
Rotten world governed?
There is beauty
There are delightful moments
There is too much injustice
Too much lack of protection
Too much destruction
In the name
For the cause
Of politics and profit
x
You are in charge
We are
It is a war itself
Of wills
We think that you arranged this
We believe
x
In this alliance is
The cause of misery
Of evil
The stakes are high
They must be
This is real
Everything must matter
Assignments
Consequences
The religious call them covenants
And so they are
x
Sometimes the wheel is left alone
Sometimes there’s a grab for it
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C L Couch
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Photo by Maximilian Weisbecker on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Something to Talk About
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If I pray to you
and boldly ask for something,
what then?
Will I get it
or a consolation prize?
Will the words,
the urgency
even get acknowledged?
How would I know?
How do you?
I’m willing to take
spiritual direction:
is there something
in that? a way, a technique
for understanding,
for confidence,
for divine allowance for
our requests?
x
Do I pray again?
Are repeats
allowed?
I hope so, ‘cause
The human predilection
is to keep going,
keep after
what we’re after
until there’s resolution,
either victory
or some other
satisfaction,
which doesn’t have to mean
we get our way.
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C L Couch
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Photo by Jeremy Hynes on Unsplash
White-Tailed Doe and Her Fawn
Please tag @hyneseyes on Instagram for credit, thank you 🙂
Published on July 31, 2022
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(x = space)
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Eligibility Requirements
James 1:22-27
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What does the Lord
Ask of us?
Many things, I think
That Noah build an ark
That Abraham sacrifice
His son upon an altar
Made for animals
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That Rahab should save
The spies of Israel
In Canaan
That Mary should conceive
Without her affianced
And then give birth
x
That Cain should confess
That sinners should confess
That we should be
Doers and not hearers only
Of the word
x
That we should seek justice
And do justice
That we should love God
And each other
Be generous with enemies
With material and with prayer
x
I’d like to say it’s easy
As salvation is
Through grace
And belief
But frankly it’s the start
Of a grown-up life of faith
In which there should be joy
And humor, too,
And if there isn’t
Then we have been told
In someone’s catechism
Something wrong
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James is a brief, epistolary work in the Christian New Testament.
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Photo by Taras Chernus on Unsplash
“I am from Ukraine, there is a war going on in my country now. Your help is more important than ever.”
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(x = space)
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the blast of war
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God
grant not my will
but yours
yours and mind when
we’re allied
but if it’s you or me
better to be you
and yours
I know
I’ll be there, too
that sometimes frustrates
when I want something
all my own
and maybe
you would not agree
all the way
better for your will be done
and mine left out
you’ll remember me
and several billion
while caretaking
all who are asleep
a world that’s cracking
you will let it crack
split into pieces
that we insist upon
who says
my will be done?
yours will keep the planet
and humanity
behold what
our will has done
and save us
by your modest will
gentle
or ferocious
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the quiet desert
and the storm at sea
are yours
watch over these
and the tame or wild places
of the mind
the heart
and spirit
we should ally
keep us from all tyrannies
with a will
for freedom
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c l couch
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photo by jonathan bowers on unsplash
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(x = space)
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And, But, Or, Nor, For, Yet, So
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What do I do
When God is gone?
A question I don’t have to ask
Because it doesn’t happen
God doesn’t go away
I do
I go away when I want
To think of someone else
Of something that I want
That I shouldn’t have
When I need
Or presume to need
Enough to bump out God
From my awareness,
Which qualifies the need
As something else
x
This is straightforward:
I choose to have God in my life
Closer to me, anyway
Since God is there
Creating
Maintaining
Weeping or laughing at
What we do
Preparing for Parousia
Yet
Cherishing each moment
The now we have
We linear beings
Meaning for us
It’s a saving moment
To a saving moment
x
God is close
God is inherent
In electrons
And cellular nuclei
God will become more obvious
As we wish
As we choose
As we ask it so
(the asking’s prayer)
The devil has many ways
To snare us away
It is agenda
Of the kind that pushes will
And understanding
Inside a frame that illustrate
An attitude
Against people and the
Environment
The Earth we stand or glide
Or rest upon
All of which, the devil says,
Is unimportant
When favoring
Profit
Unhuman strategies
(inhumane)
That only matter as
Winning so that the rest
Are losers
x
Who is lost?
The burden’s hard
The burden’s easy
It’s paradox
Of faith
Of belief in God who’s only known
Through evidence unseen
Who wins a case through this?
x
Such contradictions
Such opposites
The world we love must be eschewed
If we would live, there is first
The inevitability of dying
Sheesh
No thank you
Or thank you
Our will to embrace
To choose
To live in love
With the good in everything
With faith
And hard belief that has gentle edges
In what we show each other
(as in manifest)
In what we sense
And how we deal
With everyone
With everything
By which and in which
A spirit accompanies
For good
For upbuilding
For faith
And, yes, for love
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We live in hope
That God is there
That God is there when we return
Or when we turn around
In attitude
Repentance
Sorry and a new embrace
Of faith
Gove love this Earth
And the extraordinary creatures
That you’ve made
That is each of us
Not that we are perfect
Or perfectly anything
But in everyone
And everything
The three remain close by
The three remain close by
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C L Couch
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By Finoskov – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109525350
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