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Hurry Up, Please, It’s Time

(x = space)

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Hurry Up, Please, It’s Time

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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

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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

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As it is, you’ve seen it

Heard it

Touched it all

Our antics are not of interest

Unless we should please you

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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

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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

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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

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Sorry

Thanks

Love

Amen

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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

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It happened in Georgia, Texas

Pennsylvania

(Tree of Life)

Now Nigeria

Over fifty died at mass

(defining now

the awful idiom)

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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

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Who knows

There might be justice afterward

Selah

Amen

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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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Briefly, the Apocalypse

(x = space)

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Briefly, the Apocalypse

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The circle won’t be broken

Angels will hold

The breaking places

‘Til we get there

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We’ll keep the world together

Until an ending that is proper

Appropriate for

New heaven and

New Earth

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C L Couch

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Photo by bhuvanesh gupta on Unsplash

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2

Table Round or What Have You

(x = space)

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Table Round or What Have You

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Something spiritual

Reminding us

That with us

Is the source

Of virtue

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The old word for truth and value

Code of conduct

Worthy sometimes

Of self-sacrifice

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Something good

Something clear

To understand and act

(transact)

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A circle of faith

And goodness

Not for a holy grail,

Certainly not

For slaying dragons

Leaving them to fly above

Their homes

Or lie inside

In distant mountains

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We have things to go for here

In valley lives,

Humanly quests

To help without romance

To dive in where it’s poor

Unthreaded

Trashed

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And so to save the world;

Chivalrous

Or ill-mannered

Trying

(or trying)

Doesn’t matter

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C L Couch

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Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

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Allowancing

(x = space)

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Allowancing

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Should the

Spirit lead

Should an angel say

So that we rest into

Advice

From listening

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Pointers of direction

For the way

This is a response from prayer

Or simple stillness

Being still

Into the world, into night

Into the quiet blue of day

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Whatever time

To step outside

To step inside

Creation’s bands

The movement of the universe

Let it ride

For us

For a while

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We rest within

We rest without

We try to listen with disinterest

(not un-interest)

For a while

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If we get something

It’s a gift

Treat with care

Treat with confidence

Now get up

Carrying the lightness of a gift

Into the world again

Into time

(kairos into chronos)

Into hours of the day and night

Into chores

Into decisions

Into life

Into peace

Or needs be war

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Not worrying a win

But plainly things are better

If no new rewards

Maybe a win for all

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C L Couch

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Photo by Aaron Huber on Unsplash

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5

Stained/Strained Glass

(x = space)

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Stained/Strained Glass

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O God,

We believe

Variously

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Most of the world

(mid- to upper-nineties)

Believe in you

Some way

Somehow

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I know what

I must believe

But am loath (to use

an antique word)

To insist

That the next one

Must believe as I

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I’d rather have respect

For belief, lack of belief

And for us meeting

Anyway,

This way

Transacting with each other

And the Earth

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Bad evangelism, maybe

For us all to meet

With friendship and respect

(as if meeting

friendship and respect

as angels met in

Baucis and Philemon)

To realize

Humanity

Alive on Earth

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Withholding conscripted hands

By the switch

That only proves

Annihilation

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So we learn

And maybe for petition,

Maybe gently pushing us

To places where people

Of Earth

Believe otherly

Or don’t believe

But worthy

On both sides

All sides

All around

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And welcome

To the table

Of the Earth

Amen

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C L Couch

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Photo by Adam Gonzales on Unsplash

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Second Sight

(x = space)

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Second Sight

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Be Thou, my vision

Begins my favorite song

In church

God should direct my sight

I should set my sight

On God

Maybe to the classic hills

Where help does not come from

Though our mortal selves might hope

But from God

Who made heaven and Earth

And those hills

Behind which God will come

If God wills

The will of God

We want to know

We get in wrestling matches

So to know

But the outcome is unclear, as the child’s

Magic 8-ball used to tell us

And then we grew

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God wills

It’s no fun not knowing

Inwardly, we might turn into fatalism

And there are less constructive

Ways

Is there a knowing beyond knowing?

I imagine so

But without genetic arranging

Or supernal training,

I must wait my turn

With the rest

Who want to know when heaven comes

And this be paradise

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Or what to do about tomorrow,

As if clairvoyance

Or supernal understanding

Were a guessing game

Sorry

If such, then such should be respected

All of us may pray, if we may

And we should,

Then use our best impulses

And instincts

Our best use of faith

To go through the day

Hope for tomorrow

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Clarity, the better vision

Direction, as we know it,

And we have ways to know a lot

With faith and allowance

For the rest

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C L Couch

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Photo by Roland Seifert on Unsplash

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Robb Elementary School, After

(x = space)

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Robb Elementary School, After

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Irony of welcome

We know this

You are welcome now

Not your guns

Not your murderous intent

You may have a troubled mind

And still come in

There are counselors

In school and life

But really you should come here

For a reason

That not only fits the mission

But also the constituency

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Parents of our learners

Patrons of

Our special programs

Library volunteers

Or other signed-up, cleared

Helpers

We want our school

To be good

We want to welcome you

Bienvenidos

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C L Couch

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Outside, underneath the name Robb Elementary School, there is a greeting, Bienvenidos.  Welcome to our school.

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Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

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my own exegesis

(x = space)

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my own exegesis

(in response to the sermon)

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Exodus, Moses, pillars

foot of the mountain

young men sacrificing bulls

the blood upon the people

the purity of blood

they meet God

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this business about blood and purity

blood and sacrifice for purified results

I don’t understand it

I’m put off

if not revolted

I’m glad it’s done

thank God it’s done

by Jesus

thank Jesus

who for God and as God

sacrificed himself

whose blood must have purified the Earth

his blood purifies us

to be with God

now and forever

one sacrifice, one purity

for all time

the killing, bleeding business now is done

betrayal’s done

as is blood-letting

the blood of Jesus is

restoration

into garden-readiness

again

we could be back in Eden

we will be

new heaven and new Earth

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c l couch

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David Henderson preaching.  I wrote this after the sermon delivered 29 May 2022 at Covenant Evangelical Presbyterian Church in West Lafayette, Indiana.

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Exodus 24

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Photo by Nguyễn Hiệp on Unsplash

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