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Faithful Skeptic

(x = space)

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Faithful Skeptic

(spiritual humanist)

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I sin

And then I go to church

How does that work?

We sing that it is well,

Which Saint Julian proposes

We pray for the world

And for concerns

In the parish

We sing some more

We’ll pray some more

Then there will be teaching

(word and sacrament

for those who have sacraments)

Through it all,

We’re singing now

And thank goodness there is

Justice in that

Mingled with grace and mercy

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Through sin and virtue

Through indifference and zeal

Through exhaustion and desire

There is something

Going on,

Something moving

Call it spirit

Call it the orbit of the Earth

And the pressing down of gravity

Call it God’s

Call it nature’s

Call it ours

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And, yes, through it all

It is well

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C L Couch

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Saint Julian of Norwich is a saint in the Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.  Other traditional Protestant churches recognize her standing.  Many Christians of all kinds respect her work in parish service and the service of the Christian Church, overall.  Her name is not known:  she is called Julian because that was the name of the church in Norwich, England where she lived.  She had a cell there, not a jail cell but a hermit’s.  She had a cat.  Each day people of the town would come to her to speak with her through a window, asking her for wisdom and advice.  I’m sorry, I should have mentioned that she lived and worked from the latter decades of the fourteenth century into the first years of the fifteenth century.

She wrote Revelations of Divine Love, a widely-read spiritual text.  It is also taken as the oldest book written in English by a woman.  Two things Julian is popularly known for asserting are the metaphor of the world as a hazelnut (long before William Blake asserted perceiving the world as and through a grain of sand).  And she claimed that, no matter how grim or unhopeful or destructive the world might seem, all shall be well.  She says this many times.

And all shall be well.

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Photo by Külli Kittus on Unsplash

Tallinn, Estonia

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Flying, Creeping Things

(x = space)

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Flying, Creeping Things

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I liken the bird

To the Holy Spirit

That flies with grace,

Usually

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Often arrives

As a surprise

That on good

Days knows the wind

And all the stirrings

Of the Earth,

That often arrives

As shadow,

Serving

As prophecy

Anticipated

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The Bible kind

Nothing marketed

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We can aim

And shoot

And tear the metaphor

Apart

Or we can listen

Glossolalia

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A song announcing

God is alive

In fragile revelation

For our sakes

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Closely attend

An irony of notice,

Trampling the uncertainty

Doctrine or fear

Demand

With the way in

We’ve always wanted

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C L Couch

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Leviticus 11:21-22

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Photo by Agustin Fernandez on Unsplash

Punta Alta, Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Zen

(x = space)

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Zen

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The lotus teaches

To be calm and whole

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Bright color in

An otherwise dark pond,

Soft pointing toward

Heaven in many ways

(there is the root below)

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Directions are not

Lost, even though

Not all become traditions

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One point for someone

Might lead to

Singular adventure

And faith from that

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C L Couch

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Photo by Umur Batur Kocak on Unsplash

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2 poems about parochial gods

(x = space)

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2 poems about parochial gods

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Anvil-Thinking

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Sheesh, I wake up with more

Headaches

Under the metal

Of the skin

Someone has been hitting with

A hammer while I slept

Or gave a go

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To anyone who suffers

With these things,

I’m sorry;

For those of you around them,

Take a moment to consider

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I don’t know if it’s pollution

Of some kind

Or the tyranny of thought

That keeps us from free thinking

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Well, more power

To you from the utility

Of time and grace

And maybe a surprise, that if

We try everything we know

(keep it safe, please—no

candles in the ear)

Then both of us will have

A better morning,

Thanks to

Maybe all our household gods

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Leave an offering

Of grain upon the hearth

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Photo by Bruce Kee on Unsplash

Patrica, Italy

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No Contest

(1 Kings 18:20-40)*

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Are there false gods

Or gods who are false?

Are there true gods

Who like to lie

And treat penitents with

Indiscretion?

Does Ba’al not exist

Or did it not give its profits

What they wanted?

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Maybe it cows before

The God of Israel

Who holds the truth

That displays

Are for the chumps

While true belief

Has no need

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And so Elijah won

The contest because to him

It was no deal:

Light a fire on wet wood?

Not only is it nothing

It proves nothing

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Belief is a fire

Somewhere else,

And faith lives out a lifestyle of

Easy miracles

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https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%2018:20-40&version=ESV

*verse 40 is especially brutal

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Photo by sarina gr on Unsplash

Forest

Campfire at night!

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C L Couch

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Cenobite

(x = space)

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Cenobite

(last ice age or next one)

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I need food

I need drink

That’s primal

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Since the world has iced over,

I have nearly nothing now

She should have told the hermits

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I haven’t seen siblings for days

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We always pray

But without tools

And a bigger fire,

We shall dry like

Animal meat, which is

All we’ll leave behind

Surrounded by charcoaled pages

As a testament

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What shall I leave as last words?

That it was too thick,

That I could not break through?

That the storm ruined my fire,

Even inside the cave?

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That I still believe?

That my supplication

Is to receive my soul?

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I do believe

Yet wish I had a follower,

Someone come from town

To bring me coals and kindling,

Water and a pike whose metal tip

Could break through ice

To running water far below

Though I haven’t heard it

Seems for an age

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I might be addled

Or unfaithful,

But I could go for bread and

Cheese as well and wine,

Though I’ve tried to make the

Bitter ale I have last for a while

(nearly gone, now)

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And candlelight

I miss candlelight

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My head hurts,

My body weakens

I don’t know if I’ll die

In night or day

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It’s hard to tell

Anymore

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C L Couch

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Photo by Shannon McInnes on Unsplash

Northwest Territories, Canada

On an off chance we found ourselves needing to drive from Inuvik to Tuktoyuktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada, which was only accessible by ice road at the time. It took us about three hours driving on the ice to reach Tuktoyuktuk, which sits on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. This is what you see when you step out and look down. Taken during the last weeks of the ice road before it permanently closed. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/arctic-highway-challenges-1.4398726

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There was an ice age in the Middle Ages.  The next one might be caused by global warming.

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True Cross

(x = space)

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True Cross

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It doesn’t matter

Anything

Going around

One by one by one

By two

Will serve

It is a symbol of rude

Death

An execution of

No one

In particular

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Ancient Egyptians,

Romans

Not-so-ancient Nazis

Executed criminals

This way,

Leaving displays

To teach

The rest

This is how much

We care

Should you deviate

From imperial

Reasoning

And the protection

We afford

The laity

x

Add it

To the trash heap

On the outskirts

Of the city

Add two thieves

Say all were

Detriments

To the local good

Hung by lies,

They die

x

Should any

Die in faith

Even in a final

Moment,

Knowing for the living

That goes down in

Consternation

(was the

death-bed profession

real?)

That is,

Thankfully,

Not our job to

Manage

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Two thieves might

Have gone

(their remains)

To a potter’s field

The third

Into a borrowed tomb,

Lent by faith

Itself and love

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So put two sticks

Together,

There’s a cross

True enough

For residence of

Faith

A common symbol

Even less

No superiority

To go

This way,

To carry into life

Nothing special,

Child of God

Like the one

Like anyone

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C L Couch

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Photo by David Libeert on Unsplash

Kortrijk, Belgium

The Cross

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Exegete the Rocket Ship

(x = space)

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Exegete the Rocket Ship

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The shortest verse

Is Jesus wept

My favorite one is Help my unbelief

And then the verses about

A heart created clean

By God,

Presuming that means re-cleaned

As well

Doubt and renewal

Sorry, they’re important

I think we need them

Though, yes, I’ll speak mostly

For myself

When it comes to meeting means

For spirit and or in the flesh

The realms where we dwell

Without preference

Or will

We simply are in these

And must do our best,

Which can be exciting

On our planet buzzing through the universe

Of lithesome opportunity

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C L Couch

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“Axel Tschentscher,” CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83143301

Church of the Holy Ghost in Bern. This is the spire in evening light with a clear view of the 4000-meter peaks of the mountains Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau.

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Beadling

(x = space)

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Beadling

(pandemic time)

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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

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C L Couch

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(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)

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Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash

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Mystery Unsolved

Mystery Unsolved

 

I don’t know what

I can come up with

Today

I’ve been looking for

A day off

And haven’t quite

Managed it

But we’ll see

I’m watching a mystery

Now, a good one

From a series that I

Like

British, not that the

British do the best,

Though they’re awfully

Good

 

Typically, the

Mystery is a murder,

Which is sad

Typically, the person killed

Is introduced

Villainous enough that

We don’t mind,

Though we might then be

Disposed toward

Sympathy for

The killer, which is

Something writers

I imagine

Keep in mind

While working all things

Out

I don’t know

I’ve written a couple

Of mysteries of

The two-minute kind

 

Mystery certainly is

A spiritual word

The foundation of

Our faith in a

Paradox,

Since faith is something

Clear in its conviction

But not so much

In content

It is the evidence

Of things unseen,

Which would go terribly

In court

Yet must be followed

For belief

And in that regard

Faith is gossamer

Not concrete

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

 

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