Surprised by Grace
God
I love you
And I wish for
I don’t know
It’s not as if you’re in a lamp
Three wishes?
Not enough
So grant me what you think is best
The million tax-free dollars
Will wait
Unless
Unless
How about some love today
Unbidden, even without
Expectation?
Actually, it happened
Yesterday
Someone brought some
Food, not because
I was in trouble
But because of plenty
And of friendship
That’s love
For a story
Maybe for a
Thousandth night
C L Couch
Image by miniformat65 from Pixabay
Prismatic
How
Is it, God,
That you can love all things?
You can
Your capacity is the ocean
And the stars
With all that swims in both
Your depth is above heaven
Down to hell,
Deeper
We think ourselves so much
We move upon a planet
We are cruel
Sometimes we are kind,
Which shouldn’t have to come
Across
As a surprise
Are you sorry that you gave
The rainbow?
It’s a pledge to keep us here
There might be tests of
Floods, and
Maybe they could tempt you
Though I think we have your word,
If anyone
Could keep it
If anyone could stay a hand
Waiting for
What happens next
If there’s anything in a
Surprise
C L Couch
photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash
created with garden hosepipe
Think God
(a three-part cycle)
Fear and Trembling
Something the Christian
Forgets about so easily
In a place of comfort
Where the enemy is no longer
Satan but each other
Can one have faith and comfort?
Sure, maybe faith first
Comfort without faith
Is drinking from a magic well
That keeps refilling and never
Satisfies thirst
And then there is salvation
Worked out in fear and trembling
A translation for me
Hopefully, a good one
Fear of God incites wisdom,
Which is a paraphrase of what
I hope is also a good translation
Awesome
Awful
Full of awe
This is what God is and
What God demands
But quietly, like a purring cat
Or doting dog
God’s insistence is, if not mitigated,
Then defined by love
And practiced
God is not the tyrant ‘til we let God be
There should be no human models
God is perfect lord
And loving in perfection
No earthly monarch has achieved this
Few have tried
Though a few
A couple of them ruling now
But what do I know, democracy-bound
And preferring it that way
But fear and trembling
Of the world? not so much
But of God,
I should try
So should you
Holy Metaphors
In my translations,
God is a spirit
God is love
And somewhere God is a lion
Not so bad for metaphors
Except they live
As metaphors cannot
Tame lion?
No but good
You know where that’s said
(itself translated)
Love, all love
And perfectly
And we should try
And God is a spirit
As we say, a holy spirit
There might be other spirits
I guess there are
Some good, some bad
But this one’s holy, that is,
Set aside for a spiritual purpose
Which is to say, then, spirit-spirit
Not addition or an algorithm
We cannot match the exponent
Though counting stars might try for it
If God Is Love
If God is love
Then why so much hate?
Because our choices have to count
For that, there must be consequences
This is the price for lack of
Puppetry
No strings—we’re on our own
Free to ally with
Whomever, whatever
Hate is not the absence of love
But the filling up of something else
Close to evil, too close
For righteousness is something we are
Bad at
And hating evil?
Riskiest of all
But there it is
You don’t want evil?
Resist it, mock it
(Catholic and Protestant agree)
Go another way
Ending hate is something of the same
And the fullness not of a side
But of the center of the circle, which
Goes by many names,
Though I imagine you know
The name I’m thinking of
The essence
The purpose
The last metaphor for God
C L Couch
sources cited (poetically, you know)
Philippians 2:12-13
Proverbs 9:10
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Thomas More and Martin Luther are cited.
And Oh, God 2.
Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash
Tontines
If there is a God
And sorry if there’s not
(there is—
there, you have the ending
of the story)
Then I wish God to do
A better job of it
For all the dreadful things
That happen
Not to me
(though, yes, there’s that)
But to all the people
Who are burned in fire
Felled into the earth
Killed because smooth steel
And lead pellets seemed
Good inventions at the time
And since
(we can beat them all down
anytime, pleading a case for
ploughshares)
God, can you not stop
All the measures that hide empire
Except where vanity
Vaingloriousness
Must break through
The offices and the meeting rooms
Sending, allowing
Hurt into the battlefields?
Naturally and practically, you can
Though there is that stone so
Heavy that you cannot lift
You made it out of will
And set it spinning
42, the Earth
It is a kind of comedy
The classic kind, pray please
In which through funny means
(grim humor in grim times)
The community is healed
Better than restored,
Renewed
And we have a forest for a world
Near the city of perfection
Feasts, cominglings, promises
Of weddings
‘Round fires tamed by angels
The marriage of harrowed hell
And heaven
New heaven partners with
New world, finally the right kind:
Just
And which
To mitigate with love
C L Couch
Photo by Richard Cordones on Unsplash
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Looking Forward
Should the Shepherds Sing
I want to tell you, God,
That I love you and
Need you
But crazy isn’t good,
And I don’t want that
Crazy is good for David
Or Deborah or other prophets
Who come to you and
Are not burned by
The holy of holies
That is too much:
Too powerful,
Specific, and eccentric
Might we meet instead by
The shepherd’s brook,
I could save my fear
Inside the burbling
For anything you might
Say to me
And might I only listen
Thanks still to be living
Should all go well,
We might rest a while
Should the shepherds sing for us
New litanies
At night inside the hills
I might be asking for
A small trail under trees
Back into heaven
Cold and clear
As we had drunk
And washed
In this encounter
With only country rudeness
(thank goodness)
For an ornament
A style
Show the way
Way too easy
And romantic
I might have to endure
Some craziness
Call the party
Homecoming
Like the ark from Shiloh
Danced into the bright city
Yet I might listen from an
Outskirt,
Feel the air from
Underneath an arch that shows
The desert
No longer inimical
But part of home
C L Couch
Photo by Makenna Entrikin on Unsplash
The dreamy walkway leading up to our campsite in the Sahara Desert.
Praying from Democracyland
Okay, God
You and me
Don’t you have
The poor end of the stick
I can rely on the other end
That’s you
I treat you as a friend
Sometimes as a phantom
Sometimes wish you down
Upon my enemies
With fire and menace
But then consider
Those for me
And cease
I have to
That is doctrine
Sigh (a real, stage, and
spiritual direction)
You are the source of power
Start of majesty,
I know
I treat you like a pal
I shouldn’t do that
But you are the source of love, more so
And I don’t know how to deal
In that,
Snubbing all formality
In wanting easy terms
For us
As a suggestion, let’s read your gospel
Much of that has clarity, I know
And honestly the fuzzy parts
Are interesting but not compelling
Either way
So I’ll rely on truth as
I can get it from
A reading and a prayer
You’ll be there,
I know
As in everything you started
The skies
The world
And me
Anyone who listens
Or does not listen
Who hears but does not hear
Sometimes like me,
Though now
This is about you
C L Couch
Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash
Condensation and fresh raindrops against the window of our car during a trip to get donuts in Portland, Oregon.
If God Then God, If Not
If God is good
Why is the world so bad?
This is not a child’s question
Only in simplicity
And it has taken faith from many
Over time
There will be some number today
There are two things, as is
God and the world
And while we eschew puppetry
We take it right in judging
God by what we do in freedom
Nature’s indifference
I can chalk up to a fallen world
That fell with us
Depravity a Calvinist discretion,
How widespread
(the narrator had it slice through Jupiter
Out of the Silent Planet)
So it’s the need to fall
The interest to
That is decided
Have faith because
The world is falling
Henny Penny, Chicken Little
All the birds that find they cannot fly
By nature or by nurture
(Chomsky, Skinner)
Or by how thick the sky
Has become
We are not the world
And we are
We take it with us
Into our decisions
Which is to say are we at the root of evil
More than the devil?
I don’t know
I cannot notebook hell
But we are pretty bad
And can be pretty good
And, if to be allowed
Either say or way,
Then discretion is not valor but
Needful as air
We don’t make heaven or of hell
But I think we can contribute
And each essence must matter
While we do
Come home to one or the other
The invitations must be that dire
Life must be that real
Real choices
We know
Real consequences
Choose faith
Sometimes in something
Or release it
Take something or walk on
Must be breathing as an option and
Have muscles
No excuses but our own
C L Couch
Photo by Paul Carroll on Unsplash
A Tired God
There are days when I think
God must be tired
They’re days when I’m tired,
Naturally enough
But I get to wonder
If a God is allowed exhaustion, too
I guess not
God must be always ready
Always perfectly to take
Though we act as if we’re bored
Though we want God out of the picture
Or the action for a while
When we decide
There isn’t anything
We thought so, must have been
Peripheral shadow
When we’d rather curse
Then speak in love
Cheat our neighbor
Rather than uphold
Destroy parts of the planet
Because we’re not certain yet
How to destroy another
Though we’re practicing
And launching
I think with all this going on
God may be tired,
If she wants to be
Surely, he’s ready to give up
It might be time for another conversation
With a mortal
About how many might be righteous
C L Couch
Photo by Antônia Felipe on Unsplash
Attending Nuclei
The spirit of God
Moves across the water
In the bathtub, not because
It’s trivial but because
It’s everywhere
Breathing, laughing, cajoling
Cleaning
As a spirit of God should
Present at creation, making
Things happen, here
And there
Inside the tree but not the tree
Taking part in everything
That’s made
And with us when
We’re washing dishes
More water
Water and air, we need them
Nothing lives without them
Except maybe anerobic cells
That might still cry out
From time to time
For a sip
Adding a speaker to
The microscope to hear
For all the cells
For all the grocery lists
For prayer at breakfast
For flat tires and new children
New cells on everyone
Everything that every second frames
Here endeth not so much
A lesson;
Here starteth—starts–a
Day of days worth knowing
Because when we want,
We find
The day and knowing it
Astounding
C L Couch
Photo by Camilo Fierro on Unsplash
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