**Spiritual Poetry Thread**

This is more of a prayer, but it expresses how I feel lately

Our God, the Guide of humanity, let Your spirit rule this nation and its citizens, that their deeds may be prompted by a love of justice and right, and bear fruit in goodness and peace.
Bless our people with love of righteousness.

Teach us to work for the welfare of all, to diminish the evils that beset us, and to enlarge our nation’s virtues.
Bless our people with civic courage.

Bless our striving to make real the dream of Your kingdom, when we shall put an end to the suffering we now inflict upon each other.
Bless our people with a vision of Your kingdom on earth.

For You have endowed us with noble powers; help us to use them wisely, and with compassion.
Bless our people with a wise and feeling heart.

You have given us freedom to choose between good and evil. May we choose good, that our children may inherit from us the blessings of dignity and freedom, prosperity and peace.

Loneliness (from the “Gates of Prayer” prayer book):

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain – and back in rain.
I have out-walked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say goodbye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.