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Prayer Practicing

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Prayer Practicing

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The best place to pray

Is at church

Or at home

Or in the car

Or on the sidewalk

(watch your

step)

Or beneath a tree

Or inside a tree,

Having climbed

Up

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With others

Or all alone

Or with numbers

In between

One and many

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On a farm

Or in a skyscraper

On the water

On a hillside

Atop a mountain

In the valley

At the entrance to a desert

Far within

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While walking

While

Sitting still

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So anywhere

And when you’re feeling

Where is

Nowhere

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Amen

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C L Couch

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View of Mount Cook, circa 1930, New Zealand, by Margaret Stoddart.

Photo by Museum of New Zealand – Te Papa Tongarewa on Unsplash

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to pray

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to pray

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not wishful thinking

not wishes

maybe wishes

maybe where your wants

and mine

and ours

might come together as if this were

how a point of light

in the sky at night

were made

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we might accomplish this

our wishes changed

our wants intersect

so that

there is something like justice

and like mercy

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both humility

and confidence

in faith

amen

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c l couch

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Photo by Tyler Jamieson Moulton on Unsplash

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Sometimes Agnostically Yours

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Sometimes Agnostically Yours

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God, what shall I pray

To you?

I’m sorry for my sins

And I mean that

I ask for forgiveness that

Frankly

I struggle in receiving

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I ask for daily bread

That might be

Bread

Or

Something else

I need

Pretty much right now

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And I shall wait

Probably

Pretty badly

While I wait

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Since need often

Feels punished

And faith

Is much

From an invisible God

To wait for

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And yet

Stones for bread

Is inhumane

And undivine

And so

I’ll try to anticipate

Exactly the right thing

Provided

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Sorry

Thank you

Amen

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C L Couch

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Matthew 6:9

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Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

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Mille Grazie per Preghiera

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Mille Grazie per Preghiera

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I feel as if

I should offer

A prayer

To God

For something

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Gratitude

Confession

Promise or

At least desire

To do better

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Petition,

Intercession

Plus my own things

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I’m not sure

How that’s the praise

That’s called for

While it seems

Mostly like complaining

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Except to say thank you;

Maybe there’s praise

In that

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C L Couch

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Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash

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sorry for any Italian language that I broke

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thank you

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We Need You and Sometimes We Can’t

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We Need You and Sometimes We Can’t

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Help us to love you,

O Lord,

Though

You may live without us

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Still, we can exist

Together

In a bond that is

Extraordinary:

Of energy, of will,

Of love without agenda,

All around

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It’s hard to love invisibly

With thoughts and feelings

We can’t see

And then

Your presence, Lord

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With things unseen

And unevidenced

In other ways,

Our senses confounded

For lack of usefulness

The kind employed in what we do

In anything—and

How may we

Sense you?

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There is stigmata for a few

And apparitions;

There are those

Who hear your words

In air

Or those emblazoned

Understood

Upon the heart

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We want to know;

We get frustrated

Then we worry

For offense

(offending God does not seem smart)

Or we give up

Ignore

And in internal ways

We walk away

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But you are there

We should believe

And within parameters

Of material and abstract

Hope for more

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That on this side

We may have in measures

That will have to do

For life

And faith

And all the things we have to do

To make things better

One by one

And altogether

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Tolerance

And patience

Peace

And feeding

Giving water

Giving hope for more

In all the needs of life

(material and abstract)

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Help us, Lord,

Or let us help ourselves

And the others;

Be with us

And invisibly

Leave us to choose

In respect

Of how we’re made

And otherwise arranged

Our will

That we often apply well

Even without

Preternatural accoutrements

Composing a few rituals

For service

Pledging how to live

On our own

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C L Couch

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Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash

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Honestly

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Honestly

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O God

You are so good

I say this when the sun is out

Will I say it

In the storm

When I am losing everything I’ve had

Maybe a person

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While my people are shattered

Or even when the sun

Comes out

After

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I won’t believe the sun

May I believe you

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C L Couch

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Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash

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Tent Revival

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Tent Revival

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God of my thoughts,

You guide me

As I’m open

You fill the vessel

Pour it right

Not that there aren’t miracles

There are

You guide me

When I refuse to guide myself

It is the other side of faith

The pledge we made

A while ago

You can guide the pain that’s there,

Which is good when I am

Overwhelmed

Help me, Lord

I’m tired

I don’t know what I am doing

What a good time

For an angel to intrude

There is pain

You can use it

With the rest of me

All yours

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C L Couch

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Photo by Should Wang on Unsplash

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8

A Prayer for Running Fast

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A Prayer for Running Fast

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God,

Keep us this day

A helicopter crash in Ukraine

Kills civilians

But then it is a war at home

Battlefields lost their discretion

Long ago

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There are fires

In my area

With human loss

And then materials

House fires

Are fearful to contemplate

To see

To hear the testimony

On the news

Of loss

And victims

Who are hurt

Who die

Who die later on

Because house fires have consequences

Changing life

After what happens now

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There are changes

Some by force

We can blame nature

Or each other

The neighborhood beneath the bridge

Is ending

By the hands of institutions

Other hands will help

With the newly homeless

So that there will be

Breathing out

That problem resolved,

We’ll say for now

Then think about other things

Quickening

Our palates

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So what do we care about?

What happens to ourselves

That’s natural

Our reaching toward

The plight

Or the good news

Of others

That is an instinct

From an impulse

God-given trait

Or capacity

We train

And practice

Like a discipline

Like any discipline

Run fast?

Care for others

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Be a coach

Be a pal

You are sovereign

God of gods and

Lord of the self-styled lords

You are our king

Our queen

Allegiance

And tribute

Are ours to give

To pledge from our own knowing

And our gifting

And yet you’ll turn around

To teach us

And provide

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It is a mystery

A frustrating mystery

Of labor

Sweat

And drops of blood

Each day

In all our stations

And yet we ask

In all our stations

Be with us

Start and close the day with us

Talk with us

Provide

Not as a tontine

Not as prophecy

But like love notes

Or neighbors come to coffee

And to be with us

When we stumble

Or when

Dear things

Dear lives

Must crash

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C L Couch

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Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

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Ukraine’s interior minister among at least 14 killed in helicopter crash

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraines-interior-minister-among-at-least-14-killed-in-helicopter-crash/ar-AA16t1eO

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devotional rant

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devotional rant

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i hear the cat upstairs

my brother dies from cancer

floods kill people

in the South

the Russian war goes on

and there are fires elsewhere

made by us

weapons

and-or

mania

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there must be reasons for these

and there are

that might be the easy part

will

and stakes for will

this is not for training

this is real

i should say

i don’t know

how all this might apply

to what’s next

what’s coming

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for now

the harder part

is having what we have

and turning victory

from unshapen shapes

of loss

the lathe of heaven

she writes,

refining all that’s here

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and yet outside the story

(the story teaches)

we have

what we have

and must make do

and should do better

we should win

not over each other

but over demons

on the earth,

ones that are

ones we make

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we know better

our skill is better

we can help each other

so much better

some do

the rest ought

to do

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we have the instruments

play on

war on

peace on

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c l couch

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note

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

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Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash

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