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Saving Graceland

1, Give It Up

And there are the things that happy

Anyway

Bad things, starving things

Taking from life, risking faith

At each turn

We lost someone close

We lose a job

We lose a place

We lose what we thought

Were good associations

We lose something in ourselves

We lose some health

We lose materials we think we need

Because we do

And where is belief in this,

Where are you?

You’re here, but we don’t know how

So we give up

Or don’t embrace in the first place

Because there’s honest reason not

To take hold

We might even curse God

Denial

Or the arranging of an adversarial relationship

From then on

We take down faith symbols that were

Totem as well as decoration

No beauty there

In truth,

No more

And what’s to bring us back,

To move us on?

We’re grown up, we don’t need you

We only need ourselves

Maybe with like-minded

Maybe not

2, Restoration

I don’t know how each one

Might come back

Or start at all

I mean, there is confession

And repentance,

But what about when no one’s

Done anything that’s wrong?

I don’t mean venial

Considerations

I guess I mean victims

Who comes back from being robbed

Of life,

Of living goodness?

And if there were no faith

But awful things have happened,

How might it begin?

A blank slate would be easier

To mark on with good lessons

Or reason through

Someone’s apologetics

That happens, and it needs to happen

But wondering from a point of loss

Of theft

Of trickery

Or manipulation

Then believing again

That everything with truth and beauty

Might return to the mind’s eye

The vibrations of the heart

All the evil stuff to be forgotten

No, that’s not going to happen,

Though there might be mitigation

For a start

3, Landing

A favorite way in stories to rid oneself

Of evil is through laughter

For evil characters often hold

Themselves and what they think they have

Too seriously

An argument of one that must be global

Humor, a healthy kind

Even if delivered in exasperation

Cuts through the agenda

Exposes the lack of clothing on

Self-styled emperors

Not that it’s the only way

Or on its own an anodyne

But healthy humor

Like right thinking

Goes a way toward righteous victory

Perhaps in metanoia

Though there should come

A sober time for reflection and

Decision

Or (and) simply to feel it through

Faith is funny

Worse, it’s foolish

Even if it shows the way

Turn over folly

To find some wisdom

The way some lies are best understood

Simply in opposite consideration

(take out the “not” or put it in

around each lie)

A different kind of foolishness

Made wise

Toward what we need

And where to have it, here

And on the other side

In certain testimony,

Something about rooms in mansions

Finally, though, we must face the hurt

We won’t want to, which is a good

Sign

We’re on the way to something real

Don’t worry about being smart enough

Unless it’s also made aware

How to get smarter

Don’t let your ego, on another hand,

Make choices for you

Finally, you know, it’s faith

It’s choice

It’s a choice we make

It’s the kind of choice that anyone can make

And if you think someone cannot make that

Choice for deficiencies,

God will think this, too,

In God’s way

Nothing needed will be withheld

To guarantee the offer

Or the taking

We all can be there in

Graceland, one by one

And all together, starting

The process anytime

C L Couch

Photo by Mahmudul Hasan Shaon on Unsplash