We Pray This Day
(to play)
God
Hear us today
We ask
In this gray day
Regardless
To have clarity
In you
Not
To know everything
But know enough
And suss
Enough
And feel it through
So that all of us
And
All inside
The major strings are played
And we make sense as
Instruments of
Harmony
To play for you in service
And in pleasure
Goodness(!)
Goodness
Pleasing you
While
Heaven’s performance
Shall be
So much better
Than our own and
Yet
Somehow
Coelic symphony
Conductor
To welcome
Someday
Our auditions
Amen
(and together)
Amen
C L Couch
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash
(human epilogue)
Sorry
Children
“Play” above
Means
Play as instruments
As we are instruments
Of the will
And in service of
The Lord
But God is not thoroughly
A spoilsport
And neither should
Liturgical leadership
Deny
That the play outside
Or inside
For sport is
Sanctioned
Too
If not at worship
Well
Before
Or after
If playing well
And God-approved
(and so
this way in
play
we pray)
Amen
(play ball)
Every Time I
(you, we)
Every time I
Feel the
Spirit
Moving in my heart
I will pray
But I like it
When it moves outside
The heart
Also
Not as proof or evidence
But as
Communion
That spirits are merging
Venning at least
For faith
And sometimes simply for
Delight
Then spirits
Move
We sing and dance
Among the trees
And you wonder from
Where those
Strange lights
Come
In the woods or
Over water
Or horizoning desert
Ridges
Where there might be
Air
Or other medium
For breath
Bursts that
Might be daunting
Maybe
Also invitation
Dance with us to
Say
We move as lights
Be moved
C L Couch
Photo by Nick de Partee on Unsplash
Texas fires
I cannot say enough
about
the fires in Texas
and how those
who can
should fight them
toward containment
and cessation
and then
the multifarious care
of victims
and how
those of us who can
as in fight fires
go there
and those of us who can’t
remain behind
to offer aid
and give it from
where we
might be
it’s fire
folks
and politics aside
it is a horror
a series of horrors
from what burns
and who’s caught
in the way
can't say enough
because it's time to act
c l couch
photo by Michael Held on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Sizable Gratitude for Small
x
That’s it
I guess
I have something to share
Maybe kind of usual
For trope
If not cliché
I even mention weather
x
Well
I’m sipping
And I feel kind of easy
I know God is here
And maybe
My near angel
x
The hall is quiet
For a change
Our small humanity
Easy
Too
Or absent
x
I’m breathing easier
Might be the new
Medication
Or-and
The added rest
I got this morning
After waking up
The first time
x
I don’t know
I’m drinking water
When I cough
I hope that’s smart enough
Because I want
To feel grateful
For the smallest
Better changes
In this day
x
coda
x
And
Yes
I know
This is not the day
That others have the day
x
Wounded by so many
Things that wound
x
There’s even terror
Too much
In too many places
Great
Or small
Letting the first page show
The way
x
For our remembrance
Supplication
Specific
Book-driven
Petitioning
To love our neighbors
And ourselves
When either needs a dire prayer
For safety
And for healing
For reckoning
Still decency
Still
In the world
Great or
In spite of intimate abdications
The smaller things we lose
In wider things
x
As some have tried
Aberrantly
To move the world
Another way
In spite of natural paths
Natural gains and losses
We must expect
Along the way
x
Pray for the world
Frankly
Lord
That we snap-to like soldiers
Even minutely
x
Only immediately
Waking up
To start to change
The errors
In certain plans
To raise up
And take care of
Real need instead
x
C L Couch
x
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Lord Hears
x
The Lord hears
Our prayers
We don’t how they’re
Tallied or remembered
If there’s a meeting
On each day in heaven
When and where
Angels receive assignments
Even discuss
The timing
x
Each word is heard
There is no requirement
We may ask in faith
Or doubt
We might be easy in our words
Or difficult
Say something
It is heard
x
It might be yes or no
Though the Lord is more than
Binary
There must be many ways
To answer prayer
Materially
Abstractly
With small mechanical change
Or simply in an attitude
Encouraged to endure
x
Good is still pretty good
Without the bad
There is a learning value
We suppose
But ask for what is needed
And think about
Confession
And thanksgiving
x
Dear and
Amen
Is not
Are not
Required
Say either or both
For a beginning and an ending
Or you know
Don’t
Leave the prayer suspended
In the air
For someone else to catch
To carry with endearment
For another’s hearing
And response
x
There’s always something next
Pray badly
Stutter in your heart
Speak
Or simply think your prayer with God
Pray what Jesus taught
As a responsibility
An affirmation
x
But however
The words go
And whichever
We will be heard by truth
And responded to
With love’s
Practicality
And maybe by our reckoning
A miracle
x
Listened
And responded to
The transactional nature of the world
Confirms
It points the way
Creation’s creator
Reckoning perfectly
Providing something always
In return
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by whoislimos on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Te Deum
x
I pray to God
And Jesus
Rarely directly to
The Holy Spirit
Sorry, Spirit
Though it seems
I’m talking with you
All the time
As an indication
A reality
Of indwelling
x
You are the nearest
The closest part
Of God
In fact, in me
While I know
It’s three in one
But for all I know
It might be
That you are the part of God
Who is the most patient
Part
(indwelling)
And who somehow
Loves me best
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Savvas Kalimeris on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
amen, amen, amen, amen, amen
(you can sing it)
x
there were good hymns
in church
and a couple that were sleepy
the sermon was terrific
for being true and in style easy
as if we could believe
afterward
and live it through the new week that
all this was meant to serve
amen
x
c l couch
x
x
photo by channel 82 on unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Earthquake in Indonesia
x
Pray for the souls
Of victims
Dead and living
And the
In-between
We don’t understand the hundreds
Because we are not there
We’ve seen pictures
These are not enough
What would we see for real?
What would we smell?
What would we taste?
What would we be allowed
To touch
And whom?
And all the misery
We’d hear
From the keening of the living
And the demons overhead
And underground
That scream a victory
x
Nature is corrupted
We’re claiming the win
x
C L Couch
x
x
Boy, 6, pulled alive from wreckage of Indonesia earthquake
Story by Masrur Jamaluddin • 1h ago
x
Photo by Chris Zhang on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Please Pass the Pray
x
Welcome home the victims
Heal the victims here
x
Quick prayer for those who died
And those who are wounded
And still here
x
Something in the house
Or in the car
Aloud or silently
It counts
The most basic ask of intercession
x
Like asking God
Be with whoever’s involved
In that emergency
Who are these people?
Someone knows
x
What is needed by way of comfort
Or of sutures
Or of passage?
Someone knows
We don’t know
Maybe we don’t have to
x
Prayer is involvement
Even anonymous
That works
We may not know the outcomes
That is faith
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Mikhail Volkov on Unsplash
x
x
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