stain-glass Wednesdays,
atop the alter of her sacrificial lungs…
and I care not whether deities are spoken,
or heard, or whether god is in clouds or merely seen
within the hearts of crucified lifetimes:
Hope is a movement bound for horizons,
the summer in frost, though the icicles may hang
and shake fear into ants, without speaking a word.
Cling tight, young seas, cling tight…
though you be lambs, and though you be wrecks,
for sacrifice must mean more than wrists
nailed up and dried, like the prunes in waxing suns
and the pain in human wings.
the tiles were dusty from the feet of the pious.
outside a small noise erupted on a cold night.
inside our hearts fluttered in the hands
of an ambiguous god.
we did not know what was about to happen.
I always found it hard. Judged by a man I’d never met. Praying in fear of him
and calling it love. Calling it devotion. My mom cried when I told her I was an atheist. She won’t see me in heaven. And honestly I don’t want to see her either. She acts as if confession is an excuse to be the devil.
He stood just inside the entrance of the church, ragged, dirty clothes barely covering his back. A lifetime of possessions barely filled the two plastic bags he carried, but in his hand shone a glimmering coin. The little girl had given it to him after stopping herself on the way over to the poor box by the wall. ” You probably need this NOW!” she had said, as she handed it to him, and as he looked up at the tapestries, the frescoes, the intricate plaster that adorned the walls of the magnificent building in which he stood, he knew that God’s greatest work in that building had not been done by the artisans of old, but by a small child with ribbons in her hair.
tonykeyesjapan
It’s a great place to go when you need help or feel sad. Just let loose and ask for forgiveness if you need it.
Church has different meanings for different people: some call it oppressive, misguided, and irrelevant. Others call it a helpful, well meaning, and philanthropic. I call it a family. A group of like minded people pursuing the truth together.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.
White church by the creek. Wedding Bells for you and Me. Go, wear a suit, I’ll meet you there. With flowers to hold. You and I will trade bands of gold
I used to be there every Sunady morning for at least an hour, sometimes two. Then college happened. Suddenly no one was making me get up. I didn’t go anymore. I miss it. When I’m in Rome, I think I’ll go to mass at a different old cathedral each week.
Bethany
They piled out in droves at the intersection of 35 and Sycamore. Cars parked on the sides blocking the second lane of traffic for those that worked on Sundays. They stood in the streets chatting and causing road blocks. Old ladies walking slowly without looking and old men in fine suits wearing gold watches looking out at the faces in the car windows staring back, wondering why the other was where they were instead of the other side.
Irony every sunday. Love said, hate expressed. Happiness yet sadness. individuals within a congregation. Enemies in the same room. The devil is a liar. Maybe we are too. He shakes his head.
Kourtney
What is a church without a congregation?
Does this make it a mere structure?
Resolution with execution and an audience
can not be considered dogma just as our goals are
Why oh why
This question is so dry
Can we not make up our minds?
Time time
Beatrice
I only 2 minutes to write my peace to express my thoughts trough out my speech. It feels like im in a confession booth cause i dont want to talk just to speak a untruth.
i never really belonged there
nothing made sense to me
virgins can not produce offspring
i was afraid to speak my mind in such a place
after i left
people asked me why
they meant well
they were nice people, mostly
but not all
and i felt better when i was not trying to fit in
when i was not trying to change my beliefs
I used to go to church but that was way back when. I cant remember the last time i went. I’m sure it was pretty bad cause that was the lat time i ever went
I go to church every week since i have six years old. I like a lot to church, its essencial for my life and a better person for it.
andré
As she sat crouching behind the flower pot at the front door of the old church down town that’s not really all that old, she counted the breaths she took between the time she got there and the time he arrived. “Don’t worry, Baby,” He had assured her over the phone only minutes before, “I’ll be there soon. I’m already on my way.” It was 1 am on the cool Thursday morning late that summer and all she could think about was how much she missed him. How badly she wanted to be in his arms again, even if it was just an hour stargazing from his lap in the neighbor’s field again. All the laws and house rules being broken didn’t even remotely matter because she loved him so much. Where was he? Was something wrong?
Five more minutes past and there he was on his silver bike turning into the parking lot with a smile on his face that defied all description…
place to go to praise the lord. a place free of judgement and a place of safety. a place of angles. a place to sing. a place to play and most of all the place to go that always has food
sierra
‘Twas the day before Christmas and only misery in sight. Miserable and lonely where the poor forsaken orphans, no one to help them on this most holy night. No one to keep them from the sting of deaths cold, cold bite. Alas there was hope, as the saints were in town. They wore no papal crown nor priestly collar – a glimpse of dirt could be seen on there gown. A hug of joy a kiss of love to help these whose luck was so down. Welcomed on this day where the fatherless to a family most renown. To hear of a king who loved them and would ever call them his own.
Jose
There’s one down by the end of the road, where the rich intersect with the poor, where the sidewalk ends. It’s a quiet place during the day, with light filtering through and sweeping the floor clean and the minister delivering his sermons to a congregation of burnished pews. It’s very nice, almost too nice, as if they’ve wanted to ensure that we see only light, not darkness, in God.
I didn’t have much to say because I haven’t been to one for a long time, and in any case would not except for politeness to a friend for birth, wedding or a funeral. Hopefully not mine now that I am christened and married
Brian
“Objection, irrelevant.”
“What? I’m just asking what church he goes to.” She pointed out, trying to ease the other attorney sitting across from her. His stern glare and arms crossed over his chest was enough body language to tell her that it was going to be a long, long day. The court reporter sitting at the head of the table sighed inwardly, getting ready to read back the question.
why is it giving me church again? I hate churches and what they represent: the moral structure of a male-dominated society. They treat women like second class citi9zens and the bible makes us out to be petty and wrathful creatures. I’m an atheist.
Tara
The church sat on a hill at the far side of town. It was made of large grey stones that had been dug up from the surrounding fields. It was beautiful, really, but Amalie didn’t think that way. Amalie hated that church.
The steeple poked from behind the trees as its bells accompanied the whine of the wind from the coast. Today was a day everyone who had avoided their god for the past year would come to face him. In the least each would give his or her condolences to their creator for his/her loss.
There was an old bible I picked up from the church still sitting in the corner of my bedroom as I packed my last suitcase. I wasn’t even sure why I had kept the thing – maybe I had simply forgotten about it, and it certainly looked as if it had, appearing to be more dust than leather or paper. Still, I picked the bible up and brushed away the sheet of age, staring at the stamped golden letters on its cover.
Why did I snatch this from the church? I guess because it reminded me of her.
Belinda Roddie
The church. So many images come to mind when one thinks of the word, “church”. There are images of beautiful buildings and cathedrals that exemplify the glory and grandeur that are associated with it but there are also images of the body of Christ and Christians working together, loving and serving together in a beautiful community. While there is no right answer as to what it is truly, I think that the church is going to be the primary instrument through which God will change the world.
Josh Martin
The ancient building reached into the clouded sky like a behemoth. Its windows were dark but when the sky was light or when lit up from inside, the windows glowed all colors. Some walked into the church and others walked right past it.
we were quiet. it was like worship. the trees arched over and the sun backlit making it look like stained glass. the only sound was the rain dripping from leaves. even the birds seemed to be in awe…
She lived in a tiny apartment
singing and dancing
eating and praying
writing and crying
home was her church
praising this alone time
Lace
“Mom and Dad are at church, so I’m alone.” I told Finn as I propped my feet on the coffee table and grabbed the remote, searching for something decent to watch on TV. “What do you want?”
He shrugged with a smile, those idiotic blue eyes of his sparkling as he sat next to me. Just wanted to hang.” He pushed his hair back and poked my side. “That okay, Kat?”
“Yeah, sure.” I replied, trying to steady my voice. Ugh. Being in love is weird. And stupid. But kinda nice, too.
AJ Kenobi
church is a place where people get set free. where community crowds and loneliness. where isolation dissipates. church is where Jesus shows up and where chains are broken. where grace floods in and freedom is found for the great glory of God.
Dave Schools
The church stood on the grassy meadow. Next to it was a road leading seemingly to nowhere. The church was surrounded by a stone gate. The priest walked out of the church. Lightning struck.
ld
The church was honestly a dumpy, small permutation of the standard modernist church formula, with its dusty brick veneer and stumpy angled spires
T
Every Tuesday and Thursday I go to practice ki-aikido. In front of the dojo there is a church. Sometimes the Moon is just above it and it looks pretty awesome when it is.
Alexa
i dont know how to feel about this. god though. this is weird. i was LITERALLY just talking to my mom about religion and how i didn’t understand it. what is god? he, she, it, nothing? who knows? but maybe thats the point? not to know. to put your faith in something else that, in turn, gives you strength.
Church was always an interesting place for me growing up, though not in the way it was for everyone else. I grew up in a religious town where everyone thought the same and no one really knew what was beyond the outer walls of town. The preachers were a politician in power and you were damned if you weren’t part of their game. For me, church became a game of pointing out the hypocrites, the liars, the monsters and villains. Sadness found me when I found more evil men in the guise of sheep than true good men.
Lloyd
The last place the Grate Bread trucks had been spotted had been by a rundown church. With this new location an interesting pattern could be seen. “Good job, Ushio! I’ll have someone put on this immediately.”
“Can I get in on that, Chief?”
“Sure can, get geared up. Did you discharge the guy you got this from?”
“Not yet…”
“Do that first, dummy.”
I don’t remember the last time I was in church. I never much cared for it. I always thought it was cool, though, the way the pastor leading the service could so completely capture everyone’s attention. I would have made a good priest, were it not for all the rules. It seems like it would be easy for me to gain influence in an organization that demonizes ambition and praises conformity and pacifism.
stain-glass Wednesdays,
atop the alter of her sacrificial lungs…
and I care not whether deities are spoken,
or heard, or whether god is in clouds or merely seen
within the hearts of crucified lifetimes:
Hope is a movement bound for horizons,
the summer in frost, though the icicles may hang
and shake fear into ants, without speaking a word.
Cling tight, young seas, cling tight…
though you be lambs, and though you be wrecks,
for sacrifice must mean more than wrists
nailed up and dried, like the prunes in waxing suns
and the pain in human wings.
the tiles were dusty from the feet of the pious.
outside a small noise erupted on a cold night.
inside our hearts fluttered in the hands
of an ambiguous god.
we did not know what was about to happen.
I always found it hard. Judged by a man I’d never met. Praying in fear of him
and calling it love. Calling it devotion. My mom cried when I told her I was an atheist. She won’t see me in heaven. And honestly I don’t want to see her either. She acts as if confession is an excuse to be the devil.
He stood just inside the entrance of the church, ragged, dirty clothes barely covering his back. A lifetime of possessions barely filled the two plastic bags he carried, but in his hand shone a glimmering coin. The little girl had given it to him after stopping herself on the way over to the poor box by the wall. ” You probably need this NOW!” she had said, as she handed it to him, and as he looked up at the tapestries, the frescoes, the intricate plaster that adorned the walls of the magnificent building in which he stood, he knew that God’s greatest work in that building had not been done by the artisans of old, but by a small child with ribbons in her hair.
It’s a great place to go when you need help or feel sad. Just let loose and ask for forgiveness if you need it.
Church has different meanings for different people: some call it oppressive, misguided, and irrelevant. Others call it a helpful, well meaning, and philanthropic. I call it a family. A group of like minded people pursuing the truth together.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.
White church by the creek. Wedding Bells for you and Me. Go, wear a suit, I’ll meet you there. With flowers to hold. You and I will trade bands of gold
I used to be there every Sunady morning for at least an hour, sometimes two. Then college happened. Suddenly no one was making me get up. I didn’t go anymore. I miss it. When I’m in Rome, I think I’ll go to mass at a different old cathedral each week.
They piled out in droves at the intersection of 35 and Sycamore. Cars parked on the sides blocking the second lane of traffic for those that worked on Sundays. They stood in the streets chatting and causing road blocks. Old ladies walking slowly without looking and old men in fine suits wearing gold watches looking out at the faces in the car windows staring back, wondering why the other was where they were instead of the other side.
Irony every sunday. Love said, hate expressed. Happiness yet sadness. individuals within a congregation. Enemies in the same room. The devil is a liar. Maybe we are too. He shakes his head.
What is a church without a congregation?
Does this make it a mere structure?
Resolution with execution and an audience
can not be considered dogma just as our goals are
Why oh why
This question is so dry
Can we not make up our minds?
Time time
I only 2 minutes to write my peace to express my thoughts trough out my speech. It feels like im in a confession booth cause i dont want to talk just to speak a untruth.
Reminds me of a song which makes me smile. It’s twisted. Church is mentioned.
i never really belonged there
nothing made sense to me
virgins can not produce offspring
i was afraid to speak my mind in such a place
after i left
people asked me why
they meant well
they were nice people, mostly
but not all
and i felt better when i was not trying to fit in
when i was not trying to change my beliefs
I used to go to church but that was way back when. I cant remember the last time i went. I’m sure it was pretty bad cause that was the lat time i ever went
I go to church every week since i have six years old. I like a lot to church, its essencial for my life and a better person for it.
As she sat crouching behind the flower pot at the front door of the old church down town that’s not really all that old, she counted the breaths she took between the time she got there and the time he arrived. “Don’t worry, Baby,” He had assured her over the phone only minutes before, “I’ll be there soon. I’m already on my way.” It was 1 am on the cool Thursday morning late that summer and all she could think about was how much she missed him. How badly she wanted to be in his arms again, even if it was just an hour stargazing from his lap in the neighbor’s field again. All the laws and house rules being broken didn’t even remotely matter because she loved him so much. Where was he? Was something wrong?
Five more minutes past and there he was on his silver bike turning into the parking lot with a smile on his face that defied all description…
place to go to praise the lord. a place free of judgement and a place of safety. a place of angles. a place to sing. a place to play and most of all the place to go that always has food
‘Twas the day before Christmas and only misery in sight. Miserable and lonely where the poor forsaken orphans, no one to help them on this most holy night. No one to keep them from the sting of deaths cold, cold bite. Alas there was hope, as the saints were in town. They wore no papal crown nor priestly collar – a glimpse of dirt could be seen on there gown. A hug of joy a kiss of love to help these whose luck was so down. Welcomed on this day where the fatherless to a family most renown. To hear of a king who loved them and would ever call them his own.
There’s one down by the end of the road, where the rich intersect with the poor, where the sidewalk ends. It’s a quiet place during the day, with light filtering through and sweeping the floor clean and the minister delivering his sermons to a congregation of burnished pews. It’s very nice, almost too nice, as if they’ve wanted to ensure that we see only light, not darkness, in God.
I didn’t have much to say because I haven’t been to one for a long time, and in any case would not except for politeness to a friend for birth, wedding or a funeral. Hopefully not mine now that I am christened and married
“Objection, irrelevant.”
“What? I’m just asking what church he goes to.” She pointed out, trying to ease the other attorney sitting across from her. His stern glare and arms crossed over his chest was enough body language to tell her that it was going to be a long, long day. The court reporter sitting at the head of the table sighed inwardly, getting ready to read back the question.
why is it giving me church again? I hate churches and what they represent: the moral structure of a male-dominated society. They treat women like second class citi9zens and the bible makes us out to be petty and wrathful creatures. I’m an atheist.
The church sat on a hill at the far side of town. It was made of large grey stones that had been dug up from the surrounding fields. It was beautiful, really, but Amalie didn’t think that way. Amalie hated that church.
Quiet sanctuary. Love abounds. Dust swirls. Incense rises. Hymns sung. Prayers muttered. Souls gathered. Hope lives.
The steeple poked from behind the trees as its bells accompanied the whine of the wind from the coast. Today was a day everyone who had avoided their god for the past year would come to face him. In the least each would give his or her condolences to their creator for his/her loss.
There was an old bible I picked up from the church still sitting in the corner of my bedroom as I packed my last suitcase. I wasn’t even sure why I had kept the thing – maybe I had simply forgotten about it, and it certainly looked as if it had, appearing to be more dust than leather or paper. Still, I picked the bible up and brushed away the sheet of age, staring at the stamped golden letters on its cover.
Why did I snatch this from the church? I guess because it reminded me of her.
The church. So many images come to mind when one thinks of the word, “church”. There are images of beautiful buildings and cathedrals that exemplify the glory and grandeur that are associated with it but there are also images of the body of Christ and Christians working together, loving and serving together in a beautiful community. While there is no right answer as to what it is truly, I think that the church is going to be the primary instrument through which God will change the world.
The ancient building reached into the clouded sky like a behemoth. Its windows were dark but when the sky was light or when lit up from inside, the windows glowed all colors. Some walked into the church and others walked right past it.
we were quiet. it was like worship. the trees arched over and the sun backlit making it look like stained glass. the only sound was the rain dripping from leaves. even the birds seemed to be in awe…
She lived in a tiny apartment
singing and dancing
eating and praying
writing and crying
home was her church
praising this alone time
“Mom and Dad are at church, so I’m alone.” I told Finn as I propped my feet on the coffee table and grabbed the remote, searching for something decent to watch on TV. “What do you want?”
He shrugged with a smile, those idiotic blue eyes of his sparkling as he sat next to me. Just wanted to hang.” He pushed his hair back and poked my side. “That okay, Kat?”
“Yeah, sure.” I replied, trying to steady my voice. Ugh. Being in love is weird. And stupid. But kinda nice, too.
church is a place where people get set free. where community crowds and loneliness. where isolation dissipates. church is where Jesus shows up and where chains are broken. where grace floods in and freedom is found for the great glory of God.
The church stood on the grassy meadow. Next to it was a road leading seemingly to nowhere. The church was surrounded by a stone gate. The priest walked out of the church. Lightning struck.
The church was honestly a dumpy, small permutation of the standard modernist church formula, with its dusty brick veneer and stumpy angled spires
Every Tuesday and Thursday I go to practice ki-aikido. In front of the dojo there is a church. Sometimes the Moon is just above it and it looks pretty awesome when it is.
i dont know how to feel about this. god though. this is weird. i was LITERALLY just talking to my mom about religion and how i didn’t understand it. what is god? he, she, it, nothing? who knows? but maybe thats the point? not to know. to put your faith in something else that, in turn, gives you strength.
Church was always an interesting place for me growing up, though not in the way it was for everyone else. I grew up in a religious town where everyone thought the same and no one really knew what was beyond the outer walls of town. The preachers were a politician in power and you were damned if you weren’t part of their game. For me, church became a game of pointing out the hypocrites, the liars, the monsters and villains. Sadness found me when I found more evil men in the guise of sheep than true good men.
The last place the Grate Bread trucks had been spotted had been by a rundown church. With this new location an interesting pattern could be seen. “Good job, Ushio! I’ll have someone put on this immediately.”
“Can I get in on that, Chief?”
“Sure can, get geared up. Did you discharge the guy you got this from?”
“Not yet…”
“Do that first, dummy.”
I don’t remember the last time I was in church. I never much cared for it. I always thought it was cool, though, the way the pastor leading the service could so completely capture everyone’s attention. I would have made a good priest, were it not for all the rules. It seems like it would be easy for me to gain influence in an organization that demonizes ambition and praises conformity and pacifism.