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Bible

Lean

(x = space)

x

x

Lean

(John 3:17)

x

Not to condemn

But to love

Because God would rather love

And does love

It is gravity

The universe is biased toward

That which keeps us together

And God is biased

In the same way

x

Everything is biased

Everything leans

The one who can be objective

Best

Who maybe sets objectivity

Aside for math

(maybe)

Has chosen to favor

The impulse of creation

And an agenda

Toward ourselves

x

God would rather save than condemn

Would rather love than judge

Who will judge

And do so with perfection

Also to pardon

With a possibility

Faith required

Faith in something freely offered

Grace

The sacrifice made by another

Who was God

Who is God

That in the mixture of flesh and the divine

Blood and spirit

Sin and innocence

Might conquer death

And offer conquered death

As proffered life

The chance to live in hope today with

As the song asserts

Bright hope for tomorrow

x

Perfection chooses

Love’s mitigation

Case dismissed

Open the gates

Or however admission

Might be managed

Into heaven

And for now

Into today

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Steven Van Elk on Unsplash

Foggy Beach Walk

x

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Faith Alone

(x = space)

x

x

Faith Alone

x

The Bible

Through a friend

Took us to Ephesians

Yesterday

Where we are saved

By grace through faith

One thing required

Of us,

To believe

x

Faith alone

Ignites the spark

As if the kindling

For the fire of grace

Were waiting

On the inside

All this time

x

Let salvation blaze

In heaven and

In testimony

While

Here we need to know

Whose means for fire

Rests

And waits

For the one thing

That matters

For a spark

A start

To save

x

Ephesians 2:8

(thank you, David)

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

x

0

To Philemon

(x = space)

x

x

To Philemon

(“and to the church in thy house”)

x

We are encouraged

By your faith

In fact

We have joy

x

Give Onesimus

Another chance

We send him

To you

He may have wronged thee

Take him back

x

If he owes anyone money

Or its equivalent

I will repay it

I tell you this myself

Who

Told you about the faith and

So be saved

x

Receive him

Who to me has

Become

Peer and colleague

And he will serve you

Especially this way

x

Treat him now

As one who has

Standing

No matter how it might

Have gone

Before

x

Let the deeper parts

Of all of us

Be glad

That we are one

In Christ

x

From all of us

Who live

Captive by the world

For now

Grace and peace

To thee

And thine

x

From prisoners with me

Paul

x

C L Couch

x

x

Philemon is the addressee of a brief epistle in the Christian New Testament

x

Photo by Mike Hindle on Unsplash

x

2

Oracle

(x = space)

x

x

Oracle

x

x

Pent-Up

x

I wish the chemicals

Flowed more freely

Is it that they pass through

Glands

And mine rest in the body

Without balance

x

I was calm

And then adrenaline released

Caused me to jump

Around

You know

Inside

x

And now I contemplate my day

And its appointments

And could do without

The set-to

Consideration the expectations

Guessing really

Going on

Inside

x

x

Better Living

x

I never experimented

Never toked

Never smoked a cigarette

Never tried

What came within

The colored patches

x

Now a grown-up

I get pills

I know the younger

Get them

Too

And apologize

x

Prognosis

And prescriptions

It is the way

Buter’s way for our flesh

With what imposes

From the testament

About

Three-score and seven

x

x

That’s All

x

But

Lord

There are all the

Hundreds of years

Of patriarchs

Of Eve

Of Sarah

The subsumption of

Enoch

Elijah

x

Too many dying young

Through

Murder

Flood

And war

And then

The many who exceed

The formula

Citing classic wisdom

x

How long shall you go

(that’s you)

Or I

Our pets

Our people

Or our nations

Chronology

x

We might play with time

In elevated ways

Einstein

Velocity

The vehicles to get there

And such

x

Slows down things

Perhaps

While we are fast

And yet the direction’s

Always forward

Because that’s how the story plays

And toward which

The ending rests

And waits

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Aleksandr Barsukov on Unsplash

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0

the way of all flesh

(x = space)

x

x

the way of all flesh

x

I thought about the title

first

title of a play

before that

something scriptural

x

three to five acts

the sphinx’s riddle gives us

four

x

there are tickets

paid

throughout mortality

the kind that

with a kind of magic

should become

the summons

of a claim

on erosion

loss of property

with less

with which

to pay

for greater need

x

but who

will be our advocate

who

will pay

x

there is no way

in this

unless history

plus the present

and guesses toward the future

should break

for a while

then reassembled

with adhesion

in the blood

of reconciliation

x

the way of our flesh

fleshly

otherwise

prevailing

x

c l couch

x

x

Photo by jurien huggins on Unsplash

x

0

The Good Book

(x = space)

x

x

The Good Book

x

The Bible,

Well,

It’s an awful book

x

There’s sex in there

And violence,

All kinds of aberration

x

There’s slavery

In stories,

Even though promises

Of freedom abide

As well

x

There’s poetry,

Truth in metaphor

x

An animal

Talks

Not to another,

Rather to a person

x

There is nudity

(animals

by nature are

naked)

x

And realized

Punishment:

Rules draconian set by

The pettiness

Of kings

And queens

x

In retribution

And

For

Mortification,

There is the

Anger of prophets

x

There is the punishment by God

x

And did I mention many

Miracles

For sustaining life especially in

The wilderness?

(there’s a good deal of

wilderness)

x

So

Why should we read

This book?

x

Because there’s life

Rendered with great beauty like

The facets

In a jewel

Emblazoned by the sun

And cool

By night

x

It is a book

That does not float on

Waves

But nonetheless

That saves,

Requiring ingestion

As one reads

Or good hearing while

Another person

(or maybe Balaam’s donkey

for a further

miracle)

Reads

x

Good book

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

x

0

Good Books

(x = space)

x

x

Good Books

x

You know,

It is a good book

x

The pastor also quoted

From The Quran

Today;

Maybe I missed

The intent

(there was some talk about it, after),

But for me

It was a good

Refreshing moment

x

And I imagine there are good (refreshing) things

In The Upanishads

x

How about The Mishnah?

Theogony by Hesiod who

Believed

And

(yes, it’s cheek)

The House at Pooh Corner,

Which is not religious

But is pleasant

And spiritual

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Masjid Pogung Dalangan on Unsplash

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3

First Page of Every Book

(x = space)

x

x

First Page of Every Book

x

What might God say

But that

There was a word

The word in fact

Was God

And in our words

God breathes

And the making of the Earth

Was God’s

And our keeping

Or rejecting

Is our own

x

This from opening

The gospel

Pick a book of books

For all the horror

The unmaking

The possessing

And abandoning

Of spirits

We say good news

Inhabits

And abounds

Hope for ourselves

The grownups

And the children

Hope for the world

Of people

And of ground and water

x

For in the beginning

Was a word

Beside all words

It was love

And inspiration

Breath of God

And God

A word that made

From nothing

Gave us

Everything

With the proviso of

Two trees

And one rule

x

So much for that

We’re here as are here

There is hope left

In the box

Made of word perhaps

And this its second purpose

x

So many stories

Now

For elucidation

And companionship

Upon the journey

In the other way

From a detail of

A flaming sentinel

An ersatz beacon

Showing us

The way

We may not go

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Andrew A on Unsplash

x

0

Shaping the Word of God

(x = space)

x

x

Shaping the Word of God

x

You know,

It didn’t come with numbers

Chapters and verses

I guess the whole thing was recited

As a book, we say

x

Then we moved on to another

The community

x

The interpreting community

Setting doctrine

As a group,

A denomination

Or on our own

Without a magisterium

x

Tricky doctrine-setters

How do they avoid a lie

In designation?

x

Maybe with the humility

Of Pietists

Or the Amish who

Set salvation as

A conditional process

We hope we’re saved

x

Meanwhile, we have

A book of books

Providing order,

Which is fine

Except when God is wild

In the wilderness,

Awaiting Moses

Beside the symbol and reality

(one comes first)

Of the burning tree

That will not consume

x

Remove your shoes,

Moses,

This is not a nine to five

This is a place above the desert

Thin blue air

For food

And doctrine from a flame

And from the words

One hears

Through the host

That is speaking

x

And if the order is to play,

Then be grateful

For bare feet

x

And we believe?

Our committees

And our meetings

All things gilt or burnished

For the Sunday best

To be best?

x

Might we go to Sinai

In a Thoreauvian way

Take all the time we need

Outside of shoes

To think it through

The bush will burn

There’s time

x

If need be,

Chronos will slip into kairos

For a while

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash

Saint Catherine Monastery, Mount Sinai, Egypt

x

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