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salvation

Pledge Break

(x = space)

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Pledge Break

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Goodness

It’s late

I haven’t really

Said anything

I’ve let the tyranny

Of memories and songs

Take over

Drafting elsewhere

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Tyranny

That could be blessed

For pleasures recalled

And challenges

And to reconsider

Resolutions

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Well

What is there to say?

Love God

Love each other

I’ll try to do better

Always better

Improve

Even invent

Devices and topoi

As devices

Not cleverness

(clearly)

But invitations

For the nonce

And later on

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For that is the joy of words

Arranged

That they might be

Considered later on

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Like words

I like your words

And almost everything they carry

I’m sorry

But for now

I must set aside the hate

Even for justice

‘Til mediation

Greater wisdom

So much greater than my own

Take over

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We must talk

At least we should

And I can hope

We do

At that table

Where all words

Be shared and understood

And a new world built by them

From every session

Made

Into our mission

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While most of us

Lead lives away

Improved

Steadier on the path

Cosmically designed

Determined

Our input welcomed

Now with grace

Re-made

From our negotiation

With each other

Willing to listen

By the end

Of sessions

And be changed in

And for

A universe

Always moving

Always changing

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Together

There’s the wisdom

There has to be

Or else

Franky

We’ve earned oblivion

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I say

We say

Enough

Let’s fill our cups

And serve each other

On our plates

Wise love

Via service

Receiving thus

Salvation

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Poetically

And prosaically

Yours,

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C L Couch

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Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

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Prized

(x = space)

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Prized

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God’s will

I treat it like a puzzle

A mystery

A riddle

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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

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Except I think, liturgically,

That the truth is not in me

Or anyone who thinks and contrives

Philosophy this way

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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

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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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The Gospel

(x = space)

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The Gospel

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The gospel in a word

Is love

The gospel in a word

Is news

The gospel in two words is

Saving story

The gospel is for you and me

And all of us

Yes, it is

No one is excluded

No matter how we wish it so

We might be disbelieving

When we meet them

Later on

Even then

It is a book of love, after all

A story of salvation

Good news for everyone

No one excluded

No adult swim

No east or west

North or south

Exclusions

I don’t know about a ladies’ night

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C L Couch

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Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

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An Appointment with God

(x = space)

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An Appointment with God

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I don’t’ have so many appointments

Lately,

For which I’m grateful

In a time of my kind of PTSD,

It’s the weight of stressors

I don’t have to bear

So much

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To get there

To show up on time

To be here when I’m called

To have everything I

Might be needing

Relieved of this

Makes for a better day

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I’d like to live easy

I don’t have much

But to have time

And on the flip side

Lack of bother

On the A side

Coffee and toast

And morning

And a day for you

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Someday will arrive

I keep forgetting

You will arrive

To take me to home

By then,

Maybe I shall be glad

Meanwhile, I keep my faith

With me and then I

Hope with

The Amish

Who say, one by one,

I hope so

When asked about assurance

Of salvation

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C L Couch

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I think it was the poet Julia Kasdorf, as I may have said before, who told me about the typical response when Amish are asked the salvific question.

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Waves

Photo by Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash

Frankreich

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Grace Is Free

(x = space)

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Grace Is Free

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You tell me the process

That lets out grace

Into the world

I can’t begin to say

Because it is not up to me

While my knowledge says

It’s free and freely given

By one who could

Have charged a lot

Rather made it free

Who releases grace

No one but one

Who does not keep it in a jar

To be dispensed with tickets

Shining and uncornered

But ready through unnailed openings

To give it without reason

Save for an abiding, relentless

Always hoping interest

In love and salvation

Grace is free

It’s freedom

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C L Couch

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Photo by Thomas Millot on Unsplash

Selonnet, France

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Three, One, Three Again

(x = space)

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sorry, long

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Three, One, Three Again

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Creator, savior, guide

Maybe I understand the trinity

Maybe not

They are lively

And immediate

They are at work all the time

And understand rest

They commend a sabbath

And the days on either side

They are all efficiency

And all love

We have access to them

And, as teachers and advisors

Not to mention

God,

They nudge us

All the time

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What kind of commanders

Legions at their call

They give us time

And patience

Before anything like

A final battle

Victory assured

I mean in this moment

We wait and wait and wait

Or, worse, deny

While they withhold rejection

Until the moment

Past the moment

Before judgment

Should decide

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They give us time

Keeping everything at bay,

Which is love

All love

Splicing revelation

Tailoring salvation

For each one

Each encounter

How wondrously and thunderously

Special

What kind of God

What parts of God

Can do this

And then do it

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Hear, O Israel

And all other nations,

Catch them in the human heart

Live as one

Each one as all

Repair the ruin of the Earth

There is so much faith

And good work to do

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They are mild

They are also Armageddon

What kind of love

What kind of God

Three then one

Then three again

They live in constant relationship

So should we

Within the parts

Of ourselves,

Each one

And then

Altogether

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More than one in one

We can have that, too:

Remember might

Remember love

Both mingled in each moment

Quicksilver

And slow water

Everything that moves

And tries to rest

They show us the way

To give us something every day

Then just after our last day

After work

And battling

And sabbathing

To lead us home

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C L Couch

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Maybe it’s not my tradition, but I mean to be respectful of the Shema.

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Temple of Edfu, Egypt

Photo by Jeremy Zero on Unsplash

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People Need

(x = space)

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People Need

(we need)

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Work

And salvation

Food and drink

Both safe

And a revival now and then

Safety itself

And companionship

Light in darkness

Not blinding

Not enigma

Shows the way

Only some direction needed

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A place to go to sleep

Maybe with others close by

To wake up in a medium

Of security

Here, we call it democracy,

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Which begs the first

And final matter

That is freedom

That we paid a paradise

To own

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C L Couch

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Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash

Plano, TX, USA

A water drinking fountain with water flowing from it | Check out my blog: matthewtrader.com/unsplash

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