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Beadling

(x = space)

x

x

Beadling

(pandemic time)

x

It’s Sunday

I thought it was Saturday

Maybe you’re having this problem, too

So I should think church

(good Catholic or Protestant

Christian)

And I do

Though I don’t think I’ll go

Until the year of doing nothing

Has expired

Nothing but science and care

I do what I can

Pray for them

Send bits of money

Wait

Wish it were all over

For the living to be living

More fully

Perhaps more mindfully

Again

x

C L Couch

x

x

(a beadle, church officer, bearing

a rod with a feather at one end and a heavy ball

or other weight at the other

not for adults do we spare the rod

depending on how deeply was the parishioner

snoozing, he or she got one end or the other)

x

x

Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash

x

2

See and Taste

See and Taste

(Psalm 34:8)

 

When there was communion,

Four times a year,

Small cups

Were distributed,

Clear and plastic

Warm to touch

 

I would take my cup,

Tilt its smallness just a little in my favor

To see four lights reflected

Four yellow dots floating

In and as

Four corners

A square inside a circle

 

One dot for God

One for Jesus, for the Holy Spirit,

And for me

And when I’d turn the plastic cup

Those little lights would merge

To make an errant twirl,

An artwork of gold

 

A swirl on top

A small pool of grape juice

At room temperature,

As if to say

 

Even to the child,

We’re all in this together

You’ve eaten, now drink

And with us

Seal the season

Outside, inside

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Erica Viana on Unsplash

São Paulo, SP, Brasil

 

0

Such and Such a Church in Louisville, Kentucky

Such a Church in Louisville, Kentucky

 

I hope it is still there

The black church I attended Sunday morning

Louisville in 1983

We were the only white folk there

The service went for hours (yes, it did)

And we were made so welcome

I’d like to have stayed for hours more

For Presbyterians, there was a lot of moving

 

Clapping and the singing was fantastic

Because they meant it

(it was tuneful, too)

The praying must have gone straight to heaven

Having made faithful conduits

Such an ordinary feature

 

We would have more meetings

Take our leave and go our separate ways

But we were together, then

Sinews in a toned body of

A holy congregation ‘round the world

When such people meet for such a purpose

Holy, holy, holy

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Akira Hojo on Unsplash

Reykjavík, Iceland

 

0

Blessed Insurance [and a note below]

Blessed Insurance

(for anyone on Sunday morning)

 

I sing this while

My world falls apart

My older child might run away

My job is on the line

 

The car needs so much work

I haven’t seen or felt

My partner smile, really smile

In a while

 

I don’t want to know

The balances

I can’t think about what happens next

Can’t think about what else

 

The church organ might be better

Suited at a ball park

The pastor tries to sing along

I think I see the words on the page

 

There is no harm in singing, too

I guess

Who hears, who cares

I know it isn’t that bad

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by PhotoGrafix from Pixabay

 

 

note on me

I’m not in the hospital anymore.  I’ve been diagnosed with infections and am taking an antibiotic.  I still feel lousy.  Maybe less?  It’s hard to tell.  Thank you for your prayers!  They are potent.

 

0

A Hop Among the Tombstones

A Hop Among the Tombstones

 

Stayed there while I wrote

The graves go back to colonial times

One of the graves is under the church,

Which makes it a crypt, I guess

 

There is a low, stone wall

Everything is gray except

The grass in sunlight

And the robin

 

Brown and red

And still for now

So I might know it better

And, oh, so alive

You are now

I’m thankful

 

C L Couch

 

 

Not the robin I saw, this is a chick.  I like its attitude, if personified (maybe not).

Galawebdesign – photographer (Wikimedia Commons)

 

0

Weekend Warring

Weekend Warring

 

It’s Sunday, and I wonder

What to do

Where does an outcast go

To Zoar or another city of refuge

Will I be taken on

And how do I breathe the air

Of those who had abandoned me,

Now empty

 

It’s a search for something

A church without a church

See the steeple

Where are the people

A confessing place

Otherwise, an empty chapel

Would do well

Or a ruin of a larger place

Where faithful life might have been teeming

Once

And no longer

Through caprice

Of ownership or demographics

A tall room for birds now

Maybe those who listened

To Saint Francis

 

I don’t mean to hide

I am energized by people

As sometimes they have been by me

Even though they took too much

Last time

And what is left is wondering

And, yes, wandering, too

 

A walk outside beside a grave

A columbarium, mausoleum

A museum to the dead

Though I think it might be good

Remembrance

And for the living,

We who are outside

Not even looking in, anymore

Each of us stays in place

Waiting

Attending

 

C L Couch

 

 

Leon Martinez

 

1

A Dose of Paradox

A Dose of Paradox

 

They sit next to each other on the shelf

Salt and pepper

In the fridge, mustard and ketchup

Beer and wine

The opposites that don’t attract

But must live near each other

And often used together

 

Complementary colors on the wheel

Yellow and purple

Orange and blue

The colors of Christmas

And the Italian flag (add white)

 

Paradox is ecumenical

I guess I should say yin and yang

But it’s not a coin, you know

Two coins thrown into an ocean, more like

Love and death

Sex and abstinence

Not opposites, not really

Not two sides

Not life and death

But death and resurrection

They must be by each other

On the shelf

They must be used

Both and unevenly

There isn’t a good pattern that we see

Through our dark glasses

 

It’s ecumenical

It’s church

Folk who get together for no other reason

And often reason breaks it down

The Muslim and the Jew

The Christian and the Hindu

The Buddhist and the Taoist

Confucian and Shinto

All those who have a way

And have it rather exclusively

 

Thankfully, the broad shelf is there

The place for all things to dwell

In readiness

No one wins unless

All win

Respect is the spice

That will keep us at the table

Using everything we know

And not so much

 

Mister Marlow said restraint

And he was right

The horror was in letting go

Not knowing there are many directions in

Which to fall

 

Well, there it is

It’s Friday

For those who have one, the end of

The work week

It is finished

Let’s hope for restoration now

Before the work begins again

And those who work on weekends will

Have another day

See, the cycles do not hold

For all

And without doubt

Not in the same way

 

C L Couch

 

 

MiraCosic

https://pixabay.com/en/salt-pepper-shaker-seasoning-food-993111/

 

1

Sanctuary

Sanctuary

 

Because one is still

 

Does not mean that one is safe—

Life in one cell is open to

Mutation, loss of parts, disease;

 

Life within a prison cell

Suffers from same dangers

 

In detention and in

Isolation

(Even with others in proximity),

 

Under death-order and maybe death-

Watch;

 

How,

 

Fixed under a demon’s yoke

Whose cause is politics,

Who for an idea

 

Has been taken out

Of actual existence?

 

Toward the Southern Pole

(Closer than most of us will

Get), there is a Russian Orthodox

Church—

 

Ten bodies with ten souls within

May worship;

 

The rest know that the church is

There:

 

Triptychs of spirit and of hope

Inside

At the end of the world,

 

Where there is likelihood

Of living through oppression

 

Wrought by nature or assignment.

 

What sanctuary in the prison cell,

Where trapped mind and abandoned

Spirit are closed maybe for a

Final time,

 

Where fear

The only inner company?

 

Andy awaits

Release of one kind or

Another.

 

 

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/23100

Kidnapped Briton spends 700th day in illegal detention

A British man who is held under sentence of death in Ethiopia has spent his 700th day in unlawful detention, after he was kidnapped and rendered to the country by Ethiopian forces in 2014.

0

A Memory of Church

A Memory of Church

The family of God
That is the church

I have a memory:
A small church building
On the edge of town
Maybe on the way
To the next place
Or into the countryside
Or simply on the
Outskirts; and in this
Church, there was
A very pleasant man
The pastor with whom
I had enjoyed an
Ecumenical Bible
Study in the town

I liked that man, and
I liked that church
He and it were simple
(In the best way we
Use that word), set
Apart—the way I
Think the universal
Church should be;

And isn’t—we want
To be in the center of
Town, where everything
Fashionably important
Takes place

We want to be in
And will accommodate
Much about ourselves
So we can be there

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