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Sometimes Agnostically Yours

(x = space)

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Sometimes Agnostically Yours

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God, what shall I pray

To you?

I’m sorry for my sins

And I mean that

I ask for forgiveness that

Frankly

I struggle in receiving

x

I ask for daily bread

That might be

Bread

Or

Something else

I need

Pretty much right now

x

And I shall wait

Probably

Pretty badly

While I wait

x

Since need often

Feels punished

And faith

Is much

From an invisible God

To wait for

x

And yet

Stones for bread

Is inhumane

And undivine

And so

I’ll try to anticipate

Exactly the right thing

Provided

x

Sorry

Thank you

Amen

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C L Couch

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Matthew 6:9

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Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

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Believing God

(x = space)

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I am going away for a few days.  My family is having a wake to remember my older brother who died recently from prostate cancer (detected way too late).  I’m not sure how hotel wi-fi works or if it works or if I work with it, so I’m not sure about being in touch here while I am gone.

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Believing God

x

Immortal, Invisible

How much sense

To believe in such a thing?

Like a ghost

We cannot exorcise,

Like love

We never want

To go away

x

In something that made everything

And we weren’t there

That guides us if we want

But has an overarching will

At work

Regardless

x

Intimate and inside

Glorious in nature

Even when

Nature is terrible

And thus

Capable of fright for a response

x

We go there

And shall it come here?

A word

A choice

And we are outcast

Another word

And we are home

In a place with many mansions

x

Source of fiction

And nonfiction

Belief on trial

But so go justice

And mercy

As ideas

x

Is it everything that’s good

Compelling faith

And then the action?

And is God

The best of all?

The maker, sponsor

Source of everything

That lasts

That’s worth the lasting

x

Life

Loss

The spark that’s there

And holding the spark

When it goes out

x

Something everyone

Can get and have

Like good stories

Told well

And, well,

This is the best story

We can have

And is alive

All the time

Forever

Gladly for aye

And amen

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Lucas Hoang on Unsplash

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certain hymns and verses in John are sources for allusions

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Glory

(x = space)

x

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Glory

x

It’s a Sunday feeling

For those who have a Sunday

To be speaking

And singing to the Lord

x

The pastor cites

The shortest psalm

As an invocation,

Which is an invitation

More so a directive

To be singing

x

Can you imagine David

Dancing first

Before the ark

When it was brought into

Jerusalem?

There was singing then

And all the instruments

We’ve heard about

That played

x

Today is Mission Sunday at this church

So there are connections to the world

x

Everyone’s invited

Everywhere

Not as a number

But as you,

You are invited

To meet Jesus

Through us

Not because we are messiahs

But because

We can quote him

Tell his story

Show you something of his love

For everyone

And the hope that the whole human world

Might be saved,

x

Which is God’s wish

But not God’s will

For God has mitigated God

In favoring our will

And our decisions

Yes, it’s the reason why

The world is so flawed

And screws up so badly

x

That according to the story

Has made us

The silent planet in the universe

Burning other planets

With what happened in the garden

And then

Going quiet

While the planet’s fate is determined

Of itself

x

Then there will be noise

x

But here is David

In Jerusalem

And there is great noise

Locally

That celebrates

That helps to consecrate

The presence and the symbol

And our rendering of faith

In holy God

And in each other

As neighbors

And a nation

x

The world will not know you, Lord;

And nations will fall

x

We could wish it were not so,

And we do

x

But not everyone will be there

In the sky

The circle won’t be broken

But our hearts,

Well,

They are other matters

x

It’s a Sunday feeling

For those who have a Sunday

And take one

Or on another day

x

We have been ransomed

From kidnapping,

From the prisons

Huge or small—all intimate

When they should not

Have to be

x

The world violates our souls

And yet we believe

And from the ashes

Of all sins consumed

At last,

We shall rise

Who choose to rise

x

The glory of the Lord

In homely ways

Inside the heart

We do not understand

x

How something so

Cosmically grand

Can live in something

So small

As our souls,

One soul by one

x

Then there is the glory

That we read about

And then imagine:

The universe made straight

While also bending low,

We with that

And all the Earth

That knows at last

This is it,

The certainty of God

In blinding presence

That will not hurt our eyes

And the song of angels,

Unbinded song

That should destroy

But will not touch eardrums

Adversely

x

The glory of the Lord

Clearly

All there is,

Compelling

As to break our souls

Though it will not—in fact,

We’ll never had been

Better,

Freer,

Then to get

Our next assignments

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C L Couch

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Photo by Christian Cagni on Unsplash

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Pointers

(x = space)

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(x = space)

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Pointers

x

What shall we say

That life goes on?

It does

Life goes on

As we say a lot

Without the import

x

Better over there

That is the promise

There are hints over here

Should we see them

Should we not

Or choose not

They are there, anyway

x

Funny thing

About the faith

Almost in anything—

Nothing is presumed

By our believing

If it’s big

And good

If it’s small

And good

It is there, anyway

x

Our choice does not affect

Its existence

Or its offering

Nature still spirals everywhere

And persists

In mysteries of hexagons

x

Nature does not predicate

Or faith in that

From that

Or anything

Or ask for

Our predication,

Either

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Kevin Bergen on Unsplash

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2 poems about ecumenicity

(x = space)

x

x

2 poems about ecumenicity

x

x

Many Things to Make

(nothing like a rant but a ramble)

x

And there are other great traditions, too,

About which I know next

To nothing

Remembering the Gulf War when

Some of us felt ecumenical

And took part in gatherings of Christians,

Jews, and Muslims

Where I got to hear the testimonies

Of the followers of each

And who they were as persons

And believers

x

There was a young woman

Of Islam

Who articulately smoothly,

Even beautifully

That who knew her better than her parents

With regard for her

And so who better to arrange

A marriage for her?

x

And I was convinced

And I disagree

And there was beauty in the

Disagreement, too

x

Doubting that we changed much

Of anything—there

Was still a war, and our young

People left to fight—but

In the moments

Of these hours

There were the points of light

The President then

Had been asking for

Inside the nation

x

There is so much more

To learn

About my neighbors

In the nation

And the world:

Who are the believers?

What do they believe?

What is the story of their faith?

Might they respect

The disagreements, too,

So that our world

Has a chance

To survive

To prosper

To believe

So that with integrity

We might reach for another world,

Too?

x

Pray the world lasts

Until we meet upon Megiddo

Not to fight

But have a meal,

Exchange apocalypse in faithful terms

And human

For a conclave

And a celebration

Of each other

x

x

Reasonably

x

Most of us believe

And there are those who don’t

Though binary’s not enough

There must be more

Than defining one thing

By its opposite

Humanists

Secularists

Unitarians

People of the Renaissance

Who gave science a category

Near faith

Without faith

x

Objectivists

Phenomenologists

People of reason

Rationality

Naturalism

Modernism

Fitter for post-modernism

Than the rest of us

x

Who could lead the way, in fact,

In appreciating

Difference

And diversity,

The creative celebration

Of the mind

And the experiment

x

Sorry I must

Define these as an

Other

But they must be

Welcome at the table

They could welcome us

We could invite each other

x

coda

x

Yes, which is not to say

Believers are irrational

Some are

Some want to be

And there are those who keep

Their faith as

Something in the wild

Those who lost at Whitby

But kept the Celtic

Style and ritual

Below

And now in daylight

Seek in celebration

Understanding for the rest of us

x

But faith has reason;

Might we say

That reason is creation

By creator?

Say no

Say yes

But allow for some very smart people

To believe

x

No one has to change

Except in violent intent

It should be an instinct to

Understand oneself

When understanding others

x

Keeping in mind

With hopefulness

That the one requested

Will in turn

Turn toward you to say

And what is your story?

Delightfully,

Be ready

x

C L Couch

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I was writing before dawn and thinking about the seasons that are upon us now, wonderful times—and that in the spirit of this or that we might serve each other not only better but also for the first time, the stakes being, well, everything

now it’s dawn

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by M. Garlick/University of Warwick/ESO – http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1627a/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99645426

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2

Rank and File

(x = space)

x

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Rank and File

x

Thank goodness

For the discipline

Of fire and cloud

And water

And the path

The faithless wonder

x

There is a promise

When we forget

There is a promise

x

There’s prophecy

To mingle with

What is before us

In contention,

All the other parts

That make up everything

x

The everything we know,

The things we must

Believe in anyway

Sometimes from apostacy

Of fact,

Worse from the inside

Out

x

Before external judgment,

We sentence ourselves

For lack of faith

When, reasonably,

How much is there to believe in?

Evidence of what’s unseen–

Thank you,

Says our agnostic

x

The normalcy

Of matter and dimension

Fairly

Imposing,

Building what we stand on

For belief

And unbelief

x

The believer is the doubter

x

We go through this,

We are this

x

Often there is more of us

On the other side

Of chrysalis

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C L Couch

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Hebrews 11:1

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Photo by Ruth Paradis on Unsplash

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Simon Says

(x = space)

x

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Simon Says

(based in part on verses)

x

Is that the pie-man

Or Simon Peter?

Anyone

Who’d rather simonize

A game

x

We know what Simon Peter says

He wrote letters

We have two

He fished

One kind and then the other

It seems he went back and forth

Between despair

And inspiration

His is a good cause

For reconciliation

Saying the one thing

You are Christ

Then falling, failing

Into water

(he is rescued)

First refusing foot-washing

Then wanting it all over

x

Yet somehow he is the rock

A name

A metaphor

For church

Jesus says so

Then there’s the episode

Chapter and verse for us

When it is night

And his rabbi, his leader,

And his friend is arrested

xxxxxtaken away

xxxxxto the authorities

xxxxxwho can determine

xxxxxtemporal and real

xxxxxcontinued life

xxxxxor death

And when he’s near

To everything

And asked about it

Says he doesn’t know

He doesn’t know the man

And upon the last

Of three of these

He curses

And the rooster crows

And he sees

Maybe in every way

The savior

Who was his teacher

And his friend

And it’s over

No paradox remains

The holes have been dug

Into conviction

Into faith

And practice

In some new ways perhaps

At least on the inside

Where it matters

Unless feeding others

That is an outside matter

x

What faith,

The joy he had

Have gone into the void

Like mortality

Into the entrance of a tomb

He goes away

He’s out of everything

For a chapter

Or two chapters

His own story

Torn out by the tearing actions

Of denial

Help my unbelief

He could have remembered

The cry of the parent

For the healing of the child

He could have wept

For Jerusalem

And for his friend

x

Peter, Peter

Denier

Pumpkin-eater

Follower and friend

He said so

Jesus said so

Then everything was gone

He was gone

With the other one

Sometimes we lose our way

With the other

x

C L Couch

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Matthew 26:69-75

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(the letters that are 1 and 2 Peter)

x

nursery rhymes that are the stuff of ages, now

x

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

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1

LoveSpeak

(x = speak)

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LoveSpeak

x

What does God’s love say

In the face of danger?

Through many dangers,

Toils, and snares

God’s love says

I’m here

The love is here

The source is here

The host is here

We’re here

x

Though there be anger,

Scorn, and fear

From enemies and friends

Alike

Because doubt and unbelief

Might have to have

Their way,

The love of God is first

And follows

Like the currents inside Earth

And over,

The moving pillars

Cloud or fire

That are before

And after

x

Alongside in

The truth of companionship

But I can’t see that

You can

It’s more than senses

With which we perceive

As best we can

x

Presence and love are better

They are inside

And out

They speak without words

Until it’s time for words

x

When we have ears to hear

And cannot hear,

Count on the company

Of the divine

To know us better,

Pick us up

If fallen,

Go with us onward

Leading, should we ask

x

C L Couch

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x

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

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“Amazing Grace” (the hymn) referenced above

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1

The People Walked

The People Walked

x

God announces

God’s own birth

An absurdity of prophecy

Things bang together

Light good

Dark bad

(for now

for often dark is good)

People in darkness

Who understands?

God is coming

But God is here

God has been here

From the start

Before the start

God was

And is

And shall be

And now, what,

A child?

A virgin birth,

Come on

x

A working together

Of generations,

Places

So that everything

Comes together

Complements

Too much

It is too much

You try the words too much

The documents are old

And sacrosanct

We keep them in a temple

Leave them be

What we believe

Is in the temple

Leave it be

We sacrifice flora and fauna

We dedicate

Our children

We don’t need another child

Or of such scandal

Leave us be

x

We are specific

We are everyone

(analogous)

We have freedom

In measure

We hate the other measure

But taxes

And armies

Are the world

It could be worse

It has been worse

We plot

Inside the darkness

In our own planning time

As we say,

Leave us be

x

So God is coming

And it’s taken centuries

Ages, if we count

From the beginning

And before

The God who answered nothing

With creation

And now a child

Without instruction

For our training

As a Caesar

(any Caesar)

This is too much

We have our own children

And for Caesar

Charges and complaints

From Spain and France

Morocco, Egypt

To Iraq and Israel

Rumors in Russia, India, and

China

All the world

x

Everywhere

And everywhere we know

Is burden

Don’t weigh us down with more

Words and promises

And obligations

Expectations

You expect us to believe?

Unlikely

x

C L Couch

x

x

I don’t know how I got to thinking about Christmas while summer is hot on.  Maybe it’s wishful thinking, though I like the seasons as they happen.  Maybe I need a charge of faith, like a CO2 cartridge making soda pop in the soda fountain.  Maybe I need some soda pop.  Maybe I’m preparing what might seem way ahead for liturgies in Advent (the good news and the difficult).  Or maybe a little future holiday (of any number of holidays) is okay for the present, that is, right now.

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Photo by Alistair MacRobert on Unsplash

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