Search

clcouch123

I talk you talk we'll talk

Open Search
Author

clcouch123

In conversation, I prefer Christopher. My mom named me after Christopher Robin, after all. In writing, I use “C L Couch” (or, more simply, “c l couch”) because the form is genderless and also frankly easier to use. I have awful writer’s cramp. I am an educator more or less retired, more or less due to disability. At present, I live in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania (USA). My writing here I mean to be occasional and also devotional. Either or both. The banner and profile photographs are by my friend and peer Debra Danielson. More of Debbie’s work to be enjoyed is at debradanielson.org. Thanks to each of you and both and all for coming to my blog.

The Jacki K (5K? 10K? InfinityK?) Challenge, Day Four

Describe the image selected to go with the selected word.

This is a visual symbol in three parts. Someone added a heart, which I liked and used. But the symbol is six arcs from a circle, run through and turned upside-down in each part of three. The circles are connected and rely on the lines that connect each part. The symbol cannot be recognized or used if the three parts are separated. In fact, they can’t be separated.

There is a word for this symbol. It is a variation of something called triskelion. (Yes, I just looked that up. And not too well, so feel free to correct me.) The word sounds anthropological, and I imagine many cultures have a variant of this look. In Celtic Christianity, which dominated English religion until the seventh century, the symbol of three interlocking circle parts renders the Christian Trinity.

I picked this symbol because it represents my foundational belief in God, which is that God lives in relationship with us as God lives in relationship with God. In the traditional Christian worship service, all the senses are selected and employed. We see the Word; we hear the teaching and the music and in our greetings with each other. We smell incense. We touch the Host then taste it with the wine. So our parts in what this symbol means are interlocked as well.

There are many traditions, certainly, and those who follow no tradition. This symbol is for what I think, feel, and believe. I’m sure there are well-made symbols and well-used in many traditions and practices. And for those who follow none.

3

The Jacki K Challenge, Day 3

Four. One of my six words. And the image of the Celtic knot with imposed heart. What do they mean, and how do they work together? A paragraph about this is the assignment, I think.

Four

There’s a fancy word for that Celtic sign, which reminds of the fancy word for phobia of the number thirteen. I chose the word because it implies existing through relationship. Four is not one and certainly is not zero. Four is more, and four works because it is in companionship. Four have come together. Four isn’t that important symbolically in religion or folklore. I mean, there are things it can represent, though other numbers do more and are better known. So four can be more personal and intimately appreciated. The Celtic symbol of the Trinity is old and represents a merging of two ways: an ancient world of many gods and the world of the one God come to be known and loved. The Celts themselves had to give way to the Romans regarding religion—I mean the Roman Christian Church that made the Celts give up their Christian understanding—and for a time this symbol went away. Or was hidden. But it’s back, telling us that worlds and understandings deserve their time. And older insights need not be thrown away because something new, even better, comes. After the first day, I chose the symbol with a heart imposed upon it. The heart for me is paradoxical. It is vital for understanding faith and life, I do believe. But my heart is diseased and struggles to function in the center of me.

1

All Souls Narrative

All Souls Narrative

Picnics by the graveside, skull candy, many
lights inside the darkness, families
remembering

the dead who live again in heaven always
and with us here just now in our memorial

ways; if

family outings can be sacred, then this
is it.

There was a small cemetery across
the street from where I lived; I would

walk there and once
enjoyed a staring contest with a deer.
We’d look; whoever took a step toward
the other, the other would move back:

an hour of this, and we were done.

On another night and once a year, respectful
people would show up to place a candle
on each stone; this was

unofficial yet quietly and happily done—a
day of the dead
for the living.

There was music, too.

The deer would object, I’m sure, the
flames, the crowd, the noise
however small, and all; but

Deer has all the forest behind
and, I’m sure, its own way
of remembering, as I

remember her
in the days I have until remembrance
will be for someone else.

C L Couch

0

All Souls, a Poem

All Souls, a Poem

A remembrance of those who are far on
And yet, like Patrick’s breastplate, who
Are over and around us
Above, below, on either side

We are not alone this day; we are
Accompanied
By those whose earthly, counted time
Is done, who
Live in kairos now
Kairotic time, the time of God

Souls, the spirits
of un-never-lived, live
On, live now, live well
Until unmeasured time
Without measure
Ends

C L Couch

0

Blogging 101, “Who I am and why I’m here”

My Response

posted in the Commons

I am Christopher (Couch). Mostly, I’ve been a teacher. I took Writing 201, sort of put a blog together, and now have posts, responses, followers, and friends. What to do next is my current concern. I’d like my blog to look more like a blog–more like my blog, I guess. I’m looking forward to getting to know folk here. Thank you!

now more of the rest of the assignment

I do keep a journal. I don’t keep it well. Recently, however, I resumed journaling daily (nearly always daily).

The first suggestion I received about having a blog was from my spiritual director. I guess he liked the way I express myself about big matters. There are some things (beyond blogs) that don’t confuse me, and one of these is the process of faith.

Why believe? How do we know we have faith? How’s do we know there’s a God to have faith in? Why do we sin? Why is there evil? Does love prevail? The responses to these are not pat and are not easy, especially when the struggle’s on. But I am more than willing to talk about it all, keeping the communicating respectful.

And I post my own thoughts, anyway—not to evangelize so much (I’m a poor evangelist) as to share what’s in the room and keep the door open for visitors and friends.

My interest is ecumenical, by the way, much more so than sectarian. There are many traditions and those who follow no tradition. All deserve respect and appreciation.

So I want to blog because I’ve been encouraged. Because I’ve tried it and gotten good response. Thanks to Writing 201, I’m corresponding with folk from many time zones, many nations. I am thankful.

It’s been poetry, response to other’s works, and bits of general commentary. But, practically (and creatively) speaking, I think I barely have a blog. I selected a picture and was given a name. Maybe I picked the name; at best, it seems to have been a matter of negotiation with WordPress.

I’ve learned to post and can read another’s post except I do that pretty much in response. I’ve not been out there, so to speak, in anything like the fullness of blogging cyberspace. I’m not sure if I could find my own blog without using another’s as a touchstone.

So I need to learn a great deal more. Thank you!

7

Six Sentences for the Jacki K Challenge

(based on the words I chose to use to say something about me)

I believe that One is creation; I try to appreciate the created world every day.

I see One who is a savior, because we live as fallen people and have a way (and a One) to have it right.

I know One who inspires my living, whatever the mood, moment by moment.

Four is me in relationship with the others in my own flawed though faithful way.

Not is waste: I’ve seen the waste of lives, which we can make ourselves or others long too much to do to us.

Three would be discrete and separate parts of life, while I prefer to understand and practice the universality—with the glorious differences—of us all.

2

second try at sainthood

second try at sainthood

a saint, small s, is a believer
and a follower

and that’s pretty much it
except that God by definition
should be involved

the safety of God as a leader
to follow is that God is not
insane, while some people are

yes, it would be interesting
to ponder if God were insane
maybe insane in making us
but that’s an exercise

I mean saints following a
leader who defines the right
way so much so as to become it

belief and following, though, that
is the definition

of saints, small s
I can try that (no capital S for me)
with your help

I mean you

C L Couch
(for All Saints)

0

a little more for Hallowe’en, for the “hall” of it*

arrhymic rhymes in Hallowe’en time

under the copse
there is a corpse

behind the horse
there is a ghost

beneath my hats
resides a bat

next to the versed
awaits a curse

so this poor wretch
who loves a witch

shall carry on not
this Hallowe’en night

C L Couch

*(I recently read that trick-or-treating might have been a precursor and rehearsal, of sorts, for Christmas caroling. At this time of year, the Hallowe’en time, tenant farmers’ families went to the hall of the lord landowner—at which they sang and danced and performed illusions and other entertainments, all in the hope of receiving food from the landlord, because all were entering a time of year when there would be no more crops to harvest. At Christmas time, the same visitations happened for the same reason. The fall tenant traveling also timed, intentionally or coincidentally, with the Celtic festival Samhain—spelled with an m, the m pronounced as a w—a celebration of autumn and the food that could be harvested.)

0

celebration of the season 3, Ghost

Ghost

it is like us because it was us
breathing, living once like us
ghost become, be-turned in death, untimely
and unfinished

are they real?—we are real, and
we’re the ones who make the ghosts, for
they were us

we know a ghost of one kind lives
we meet it every day: anything that
haunts us in our daylight lives, the
choices and the acts we want to leave

behind but carry with us in a lingering
way not finished

we make our ghosts, and they haunt us

the other kind?—well, why not, since
so much of us is left behind, undone
so that we carry it in some
unresolving way

after dust, before heaven
what we leave that’s extreme and
exigent persists

so we make the ghosts, and they persist

is it bad, then, on one day a year, we celebrate
the ghosts this once?—and then again next year

Happy Hallowe’en
while remembering

they will be

2

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑