(x = space)
x
x
Sectarian or Secular
x
God
Be good to us
Today
x
Don’t give us mercy
Or distraction
Give us charges without directions
Save what we believe
x
And if without belief
Then with what good we know
Tempered by
Community
Check-and-balance ways
Human and humane
To get things done
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Rowan Simpson on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Devilry
(the passing mischief)
x
I suppose the devil
Is after me
In a suburban way
After you, too,
I imagine
Maybe there’s a strategy
Maybe the strategy
Is chaos
Lack of plan
To ruin all the plans
x
Temptation, certainly
And also despair
A bright life
Too bright
To cover all the rest
The real pain
The real faith
To get us through
x
The real hope
That’s in the jar
After all the evils
Have escaped
That move around
Outside
And try to set up
House or shop
Church or
Place of work
Lanes of traffic
Bars
Or at the store
x
More so the aim
To find a place inside
To take our rest
And better
Resolutions
x
It’s not a grand
Or grandiose
Establishment,
A studio
With garish sets
Ringed
By biggish cameras
Managed
By phantoms
x
It might look like
The nicest place
We know
Only off in ways
We can identify
Should we be ready
And aware
If only of ourselves,
Our close-in loves
x
Deviation
Hell
The hell of it
Is that it is a trick
As all the stories say
The diabolical
Looks like everything
And is
Nothing
Maybe sound and fury
For a while
‘Til the ending
As the better stories
Say
x
Give in
Or not
It seems easy, I suppose
The wider path
The golden opportunities
The promise of
A winning ticket
While the other way
Purportedly
Is narrow
But certainly accessible
And it gets wider,
Wide enough
For two or more
x
Not to moralize
But moralize
One way is always easy
Joyless
But easy
The other way gets hard
But promises
The peace, we know,
That passes
Understanding
x
Though we always
Understand enough
For the
Irascibility
(and ability)
Of will
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Reveals
x
I don’t know
It is a mystery
How we get
To where we get
We understand
Our choices
Ponder choices
Made by others
All around us
And what might
We figure?
What might we understand
Of agendas
Or of consequences?
Well, we’re here
We have what we have
And don’t know
What we don’t know,
Which is maybe why
Monks
And mothers
Other readers
(all receivers)
Enjoy mystery
x
If God is unknown
Then we are fine
Not knowing
Seeking answers
Or allowing
Un-answering
To guide our days
In relishing instead
The partiality
Of things we hold
Let go
Or appreciate
Even with longing
From afar
x
We have
And do not have
We wonder because
There are wonders
Such a life
Of having
And un-having
Knowing and un-knowing
We bear
And carry with delight
In curiosity
Answering in part
All awareness
Or simply going out
Or staying in
All the time
Then rest
Then go again
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Brandon Style on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
one spiritual law
x
God loves you
have faith
this is the only message
it’s enough
for anyone
at any time
x
we believe it
and for Jesus
we are saved for heaven
and have entered heaven’s realm
even now
x
like Marty’s distillation
of theology
“Jesus loves me, this I know;
for the Bible tells me so”
x
God bless and teach us
I think this is a promise
in creation
that both have happened
and will happen with
our participation
x
believe
even now
even here
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Sometimes Agnostically Yours
x
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
x
C L Couch
x
x
Matthew 6:9
x
Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
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.
x
x
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
x
x
Photo by Lucas Hoang on Unsplash
x
certain hymns and verses in John are sources for allusions
x
(x = space)
x
x
meeting God
x
how deep the ocean
and shall we ever know it
how far the sky
beyond the blue
and empty black
and shall we reach what’s next
and the last
x
what’s inside
and shall we understand
to fix the organs
and blood flow
between them
achieve perfection
or much longer life
at least
to have the body
cooperating with itself
x
and where is energy
and will
to do so
it is there
many serve with it
and so will fix things
and explore
and reach until
everything is reached
and there is God
waiting
not to say
why so long
but to say
well done
x
we go on
to what’s next
to discover
and those behind
who sponsor
and who wait
even to love
those leaving
and generally
the people
on the world
on new worlds
inhabiting
and to have
more and more
the better lives
fed and clothed and watered
steeped in art
to make the generation
bright and beautiful
shall do the exploring
next
x
with God
after God
quiet God
maybe with a part of God
to keep
to save
when necessary
x
otherwise
in the imposed Edenic way
to leave us
as it’s been
on our own
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
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
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Christian Cagni on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Mille Grazie per Preghiera
x
I feel as if
I should offer
A prayer
To God
For something
x
Gratitude
Confession
Promise or
At least desire
To do better
x
Petition,
Intercession
Plus my own things
x
I’m not sure
How that’s the praise
That’s called for
While it seems
Mostly like complaining
x
Except to say thank you;
Maybe there’s praise
In that
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash
x
sorry for any Italian language that I broke
x
thank you
x
clcouch123 
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