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Jesus

Flesh, Spirit, and Everything that Matters

(x = space)

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Flesh, Spirit, and Everything that Matters

(for Easter)

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Good Friday becomes Easter

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Good becomes better

Good becomes goodest

Abandonment is over

The teacher has returned

And the homeowner

And we each have a place in that home

It is so large

And always adding

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The wounds are healed

There are reminders;

Mainly (surely),

He is alive

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There was no question that he died

We wept, we keened

We buried

There was a stone

There was a guard

There was no doubt in this

The emperors

And would-be emperors

Clinked their glasses

And sat back,

Sighed

That’s done

The conspiracy is over

Plot succeeded

And we can blame other people

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God and people are

Reconciled

Through life and death

And life again

The absurdity of the final miracle

Over death inexorable

Unavoidable

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And NOT forever

What?

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This is what we know

And now through resurrection

We must believe that

Death is not all

It is not inexorable

It is avoidable

We may die

We might sleep

If so,

We will awake again

How does this happen?

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It is God

Who has a part in us

Who made us

Who is spirit

And flesh

And everything that makes up

A creator

And a lover

And a savior

Immanuel from Hebrew

God with us

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We walk a bridge

That wasn’t there

God is on the other side:

In fact,

We can find out

God is on both sides

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C L Couch

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Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

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All Love

(x = space)

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All Love

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All of us

For Jesus

All of each of us

I heard it in Sunday School

Today

Sure, you may have it

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Really?

If Jesus wants this broken body

And this tired mind

And all the loves

Requited, unrequited

Then

Jesus may have them

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Is that so much?

Not really—you

May have it

Have it all,

Jesus

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C L Couch

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Photo by Matt Marzorati on Unsplash

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my heart to give

(x = space)

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my heart to give

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my heart to give

lord Jesus

my worn heart

broken, stitched

machined

hardly new

why should Jesus

want it

but he’ll take it

I think

not because

of its condition

or because

he can renew

but because

he is all love

and will not refuse

love given

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after reading “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rossetti

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C L Couch

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Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash x

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Mud-Healing

(x = space)

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Mud-Healing

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Jesus didn’t need

Things

He didn’t need mud

To heal,

To draw in the dirt

To make a point

He didn’t need a drove

Of pigs

(poor pigs)

He didn’t need a feast

He didn’t need

The perfumed oil,

Though he adored

The one who gave it

I am sure

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He didn’t need Martha’s

Food

He didn’t need Mary

At his feet to learn

Though I imagine

He was happy for

Her devotion

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Jesus didn’t need

The Earth

Though he came

To save it

And to give

Too much

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This was

And is

A God of love

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When we love,

So many things

Don’t matter,

Anymore

And what does

We’re willing

If not ready

To give up the world for

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Sacrifice

For service

For devotion

Life for another life,

To dive or run into

Dangerous waters

For rescue

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C L Couch

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(the sermon started in John 9, mud-healing)

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Photo by Piotr Hamryszczak on Unsplash

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Majesty

(x = space)

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Majesty

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Born a king

Because he was male

Had he been a girl

Born a queen

Like Esther

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A monarch for salvation

Of the world,

Which grinds against our notions

Of democracy

How can we kneel to a ruler—the

Words don’t really mean that,

Do they?

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And they do

Words surrounding words

Of majesty

Omnipotence

And glory

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Such that we’d be glad

To bow before the one,

To lie on the floor

If that were called for

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A birth into the ages

Love coursing through

The blood, the

Organs,

And first breaths

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Born into prophecy

Surrounding prophecy

With grace for that

And will

To make mountain

And the sky above

And stars so far

Beyond our reach,

Though we reach for them

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How will it be

To meet the creator

And the sovereign of the

Earth and skies?

Wake up each day,

Face the sun

And do not stare

Meeting God

Is like that

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C L Couch

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for the birth of God, the next day, and for our days

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A corona mass ejection erupts from our sun on August 31, 2012.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

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Who Wins

(x = space)

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Who Wins

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An empty room

Where there might have been a meal

Smell the hope and then the fear

And here’s a garden

Pretty

There was violence here

Now the plot is done,

Everything realized

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Another foe

Who sought to shift the blame

From Rome to us

Our need to have an enemy

To stoke our places

In tradition

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The others should be caught

The followers

No hurry

The serpent is now headless

Only nerves remain

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The world has won

And we are glad

Our own strategy to overthrow

Goes back into a box

In which there is less silver

To count

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An easy price

To pay

For indolence

Now back to lethargy

We have time

And everything is scheduled quiet

Scheduled noise

Again

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C L Couch

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Photo by Daniel Katz on Unsplash

Masada

Lookout through ancient Masada building.

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Tell the Beadle

(x = space)

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Tell the Beadle

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I had church today with friends

Five hundred miles from here,

And I am thankful

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I’m not sure what it means or

How it counts, and I guess mostly

I don’t care

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There was prayer and conversation,

And God was mentioned many

Times and Jesus

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I think if there were an attendance

Book, our names could be

Fairly entered

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As it is, computers have recorded

In theirs pathways our participation so

Cybernetic stars

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C L Couch

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Sayq, Ad Dakhiliyah ‍Governorate, Oman

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Good Saturday

Good Saturday

 

It wasn’t good for us

Maybe not for God

Maybe God was weeping, too,

Though could not be hiding

Part of God was buried, though

Unless the strategy to

Harrow hell is more than

A medieval story

 

But first followers have no hope

Today

Jesus is gone, buried quickly

Inside a sabbath regulation,

A guard set to keep anyone from

Trying anything

 

But disciples are not ghouls

The body did not matter, anymore

Except that there were those

Who though the body

Should be spiced,

A practical and spiritual

Measure

 

Hopeless people might not

Have cared

Jesus was gone, the movement failed

Neither the zealots nor the

Gentler ones could have their way

From him

No that there wasn’t drama:

Judas took his money, then

Destroyed his own part

In everything

 

Maybe there were those who had

If in a maudlin way

Celebrated political victory

Death of the teacher

Who had rabble-roused

And inconvenienced leadership

If only in the heart

 

Herod who lived

Might be pleased

He could set up the cross next to

The platter also soaked in blood

A museum to the worldly-

Minded

And, to those who know,

An emptiness of soul

 

Who were the followers?

Where were they?

It seemed they fled

No one among them moved

Except some women and

A young man

Nothing threatening there

 

The Earth hides quietly today

Maybe the sun will bathe

The hilltop of Golgotha

Maybe rain will do even more

To cleanse

 

The people who are left

They have no faith

No hope

They have forgotten anything about

What could happen next

They are tired, frightened, aware of

Their parts as outcasts and outlaws

 

Only a few hold on to strings of prophecy

Maybe remembering the life, the

Healings, the lessons from their teacher

But he is bodily gone

This is the dreaded day in-between

Only they don’t know

There is another side

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jordan Christian on Unsplash

Beartooth Highway, United States

 

Holey Week 7

 

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Invitation’s Curling—Come in, Already

Invitation’s Curling—Come in, Already

 

If Christmas is the first day, then

This is the sixth

But then that makes the fifth

The twelfth

So maybe Christmas is its own

And then the following

Twelve days are tributes,

Are a season ‘til the sixth,

The magi

The baptism by his cousin John

The revelation by a dove

Of who he is,

Which is a lot of growing up in

Twelve or thirteen days

He was in a manger

Only six days ago

And soon, depending on the full moon

And the spring,

He will be grown and on a forty-day

Journey to Jerusalem

Such things will happen in that time

The biggest coming later

A cataclysm of the each and sky

Pierced by hammered beam

And crushing empire

The abhorrence of nature, even human

The death of everything

That had been hopeful

The death of him

The death of us

Any prospects in an honest joy of living

Then the count of days, only after

And by going back,

Really begins

 

But before so much of that

There is this

Half-season of Christmas

Sing the carols

Claim the gifts

Play and work

Burn the homely fires

Testify to this

The witness in each moment

Christmastide

The time no one will wait for,

That is wait for well

It has arrived

However romantic,

The darkness of anticipation’s passed

We are here now

This is the best where and when

We have

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Sora Sagano on Unsplash

 

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