January 2020

If God Then God, If Not

If God Then God, If Not

If God is good

Why is the world so bad?

This is not a child’s question

Only in simplicity

And it has taken faith from many

Over time

There will be some number today

There are two things, as is

God and the world

And while we eschew puppetry

We take it right in judging

God by what we do in freedom

Nature’s indifference

I can chalk up to a fallen world

That fell with us

Depravity a Calvinist discretion,

How widespread

(the narrator had it slice through Jupiter

Out of the Silent Planet)

So it’s the need to fall

The interest to

That is decided

Have faith because

The world is falling

Henny Penny, Chicken Little

All the birds that find they cannot fly

By nature or by nurture

(Chomsky, Skinner)

Or by how thick the sky

Has become

We are not the world

And we are

We take it with us

Into our decisions

Which is to say are we at the root of evil

More than the devil?

I don’t know

I cannot notebook hell

But we are pretty bad

And can be pretty good

And, if to be allowed

Either say or way,

Then discretion is not valor but

Needful as air

We don’t make heaven or of hell

But I think we can contribute

And each essence must matter

While we do

Come home to one or the other

The invitations must be that dire

Life must be that real

Real choices

We know

Real consequences

Choose faith

Sometimes in something

Or release it

Take something or walk on

Must be breathing as an option and

Have muscles

No excuses but our own

C L Couch

Photo by Paul Carroll on Unsplash

January 13, 2020 0

Jesus Tells a Joke to Make a Point

Jesus Tells a Joke to Make a Point

(brief Bible study, Matthew 7:3)

It’s a joke

A pun

The sawdust in the other’s eye

The log in one’s own

All seeing devices marred

There is no clarity

In judgment

Not without remorse for one’s own,

First

The log, however

Maybe Jesus is laughing, who

Would know how to do that

The log is so difficult to see

Around

Much less through

To start

Might all these wood parts

I wonder

Come from

The tree of good and evil?

If so

Or if not

The stakes are high

The sanctity of sanctity

The holy qualities we have

But might surrender

So much easier to find

(without clear sight)

The problems with another

And I’m confessing, too,

Which does not make me readier

For judgment

That is, to do it

Not yet

(I laugh a little, sigh),

C L Couch

Photo by Tim Schramm on Unsplash

January 12, 2020 0

Door Prize

Door Prize

Through a door to Narnia

For others, it has been a dream

Or through a wall

Something that opens between worlds

Because we have to be there

There is a story half-done, only

We must change something

And be changed

And someone else will tell

The now-whole story

And we who might not go anywhere

Will go through, too

C L Couch

Photo by Ronald Cuyan on Unsplash

Antigua, Guatemala

January 11, 2020 0

Passenger

Passenger

I don’t care who’s at fault

As I slip from Earth

There will be rage and judgment

From our advocates in heaven

While we are carried

Souls inside

The fearsome (fearful) wings of angels

I don’t care who your leaders are

They’ve all turned faithless

In this, the taking of our lives

I see her, now him

Now small ones,

This is all they have

Yes, it’s glorious

But more time on Earth

Was called for

The ground or air will have my body

But I should be walking, still

Upon the planet

Even a nestling of supernal charms

Is difficult to manage

Though we were caught in time

Too fast is fast enough

Sad, outrageous, peaceful, stolen

Those who are left, caught here

With the search

For conviction

Have got to know there’s hope

If never own it

Or, if owning it,

Feel it

Rather the irony of forced agnoticism

C L Couch

Photo by Akira Hojo on Unsplash

January 8 Iran plane crash – CNN

edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/iran-plane-crash-live-intl-hnk/index.html

2 days ago · Iran plane crash: A Kiev-bound Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 plane crashed after takeoff from Tehran on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board.

Remembering Mohammad Asadi-Lari

Scholarly Kitchen

Remembering SSP Fellow Mohammad Asadi-Lari, who died aboard the Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 that crashed in Iran shortly after takeoff.

January 10, 2020 0

Sister Moon

Sister Moon

(song by Francis, metaphor by Zeffirelli)

I cannot fathom Clare

Understand her depths

I do not have to

I’ll readily admit

She is beyond me

Companion to Francis except

Well, except it was boy and girl

(convicted young)

And in communities

Established one gender from the other,

I’m not sure how much

They could be together

Though I imagine them working

Side by side with nascent followers

And I want to think of them

Playing games as well

Between bouts

Of growing things

(vegetables and campaigns)

Washing the poor

Wishing the church into a better place

For service and to any

Could she have gone with him to meet the

Sultan as

A missionary team

In hardship, danger

Doctrinal snares

And opportunities as well

For the sultan (as was the pope)

Was powerful and smart

Well, too much is binary

I should not define one by the other

She was her own

She has it

Who chose to become God’s and his,

The moon in canticle

So sing to the sun

Brother, we are here

We dress the sky above the earth

In dreams

In daylight, we work hard

Harder than our flesh can bear

Than flesh can bear all orders of our calling

At night and for all times

All things

We pray

Be with me, brother, as at Mizpah

When we are apart

Consider the stars at night

I the clouds by day

We are in each other

Inside God’s creation

And the same calling,

The announcement of redemption

While working to save mortal lives

Upon the ground

C L Couch

Detail depicting Saint Clare from a fresco (c. 1320) by Simone Martini in the Lower basilica of San Francesco, Assisi

Simone Martini – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=154878

January 9, 2020 2

Peace for All Time

(a three-part cycle)

Machine Language

Each moment’s a decision

To exhale,

To circulate some blood

To let the body stir for a while longer

To let the synapse burn

Brightly with mind-fire,

Transactions between what’s happening

And memory

Much of this is done for us

But there’s a partnership, I think

Between all parts

The automatic will take over for

The temporary

When immediacy of thought and movement

Are tired out

Call it sleep

Call it the second cup of tea

Taken on the porch

When for a time there’s nothing else to do

And this has been invoked

Because needed,

The ending of which we’ll debate

Peace an invention,

A transaction

Between all partners

Serving on the inside

Contrition

I won’t take it back

Not yet

I need to know the outcome,

Did I get anything I wanted

If penance is a prayer,

I’ll do my part

If it’s in bad feeling,

I’m already there

And counting

A return to normalcy

And what is that

It takes me out of this

Otherwise, I want

The special moments back

But it’s the future, now

Plu-imperfect

Please

Say them with me, maybe

All the prayers,

Then let’s move on

The Answer Is in Someone Else as Well

Inner peace

That’s cool

It’s not enough

If I’m in my chrysalis

And have no sight of yours

Or time

Where is my peace

If not in you?

This is cheating an invocation,

For it’s not a talk to God

But to you

The one nearby

And not inside

We need transaction, too

And more

You need to carry me

And I a part of you

A magic story in which twins

Keep a gem lit by the light force

Of the other

And there’s responsibility

In our story,

We will partner differently

That is, for real

Not to prevaricate conditions

But to say push on

Make peace because

We know each other now

To arbitrate

And there’s no other way

To build the day

That each must have

Into a present contract

As the future

C L Couch

Photo by Jarrod Reed on Unsplash

January 8, 2020 0

All We Know We Have

All We Know We Have

The existentialists

Have it right

The Positivists, too

The Deists

(God sets the world in motion,

leaves it go

leaves)

The one thing they know

Is that the present moment matters

As if there were nothing more

There might not be

For conscience, there isn’t

Living for tomorrow

Worse, living for heaven

Was medieval mischief

If I want my serfs to work

For me contentedly,

Then I need assure them

Of eternity

There will be no pain, no sickness

No poverty, no want for

Anything (the present moment, again)

Work now, suffer now

Under my thumb

Heaven’s coming

Lennon’s song has it right

Don’t dwell on heaven

Don’t fret hell

There are consequences now

Don’t put off righteousness

Live as if

There’s nothing next

What do we know,

There might not be

There isn’t

If we go together

That is family

If not, then I’ll have my present

Presence

You’ll have yours

And it is a gift

Too easy? Sure,

And not enough

And it doesn’t mean to re-create

The world every moment

We have standards

And philosophy

This is philosophy

But there is now to apply

There might not be another

Work it in

Walk through

Go on

It’s what we know we have

C L Couch

Photo by Sung Jin Cho on Unsplash

January 7, 2020 4

Fire Out, Please

Fire Out, Please

Australia’s dying

How are the first people there?

The second people are in dire need

Those who survive the danger

Needing something of what

Was brought with them

And then called home

One prison colony is

Now another

No time for blame

This is a time for life

For rescue, healing, then rebuilding

New air is needed

Everywhere except the fire

That, God willing, must be bereft

Of oxygen to die

The irony of living

Losing all the green sources for

The birth of breath

For people

The animals who might reinhabit

Give birth again

A billion

Having been killed so far

C L Couch

Photo by Alfred Kenneally on Unsplash

Australia bushfires: A billion animals will have been killed

MSN News· 23 hours ago

A billion animals will have died in Australia‘s devastating bushfires and those who make it through…

January 6, 2020 6

The Opposite of Magi

The Opposite of Magi

(for Epiphany, for any old epiphany)

The gift of the fools

The young who pay too much

For love

The old who believe there is too little

To be paying for at all

The city street is harsh for both

It’s only for transition

But because we feel the wind

Or the heat of summer,

We hope too much there’s something here

Only for us

And there is

The Earth remains a gift

And cities an invention

Not to mention farms

And small towns at crossroads

The roads themselves

The way that can only be felt

Across the desert

Through the forest

Choosing the strand to take

In a web of waterways

All ages have a chance

Must we always give

As in lose

Or in surrender?

Maybe so—if so, let’s make it

Worthwhile

(comes to mind is something about

aphoristic pearls and pigs,

sorry, pigs, a metaphor forwarding

the story)

Money, time, muscles, potential

Whatever it’s going to take

For betterment

One life, two lives, two and a half

A million

Can we count what matters,

Can we take it one by one?

The old response comes to mind

From the teacher trying to teach:

I don’t know if you can,

But you may

C L Couch

“The Gift of the Magi” is a short story by O. Henry first published in 1905. The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal … en.wikipedia.org

Photo by Linh Nguyen on Unsplash

January 4, 2020 3