This Day God
God
What do you think
I should say today
If anything
To share
For
We know that you are love
But we aren’t love
And you won’t fix us
Obviously
And we could follow you
By serving each other
Though
The world would only hurt us
Take from us
And should we all be ready
To lose that much
And
Maybe so
Yet
Sigh
I am weak
And unconnected
So what could I do to make
Things better
But
Maybe
On occasion to remind us that
You are
In truth love
And
Direct of us to be and
Do the same
C L Couch
Joshua 24:15
Photo by Magnus Östberg on Unsplash
One Thing Two Things
(I suppose not unlike One Fish Two Fish . . .)
Have I anything
To say
Today
I get
To this point
(sometimes starting there)
Near
What I think should be
An ending
For
The day
An end enough
To say
Here is something
Using eccentric pace
With
Access to metaphor
Something
That prose can say and often
Does
Say
And yet we have this way
The dance
Maybe
Straightforward or circuitous in
Intent
And
Form
Or both and all
Together
The sound
The shape like that music
Of
Rectangles on the page
And I think I say to you
This day
(and yet not new)
That
Love is good
When
Not bent or twisted
Which may come from an outside
Agenda
Demanding faith
And time
And money
Which eats away at
Time
Good faith
And
Devotion
Love to own and offer freely
And there should be health
In that
And so to healthy love
As a value
And approach
Maybe
With
The peacefulness of doves
The cleverness of
Serpents
(giving
snakes a chance)
Any can love and love well
Some things depending
I’m
Afraid
While the glass we see through darkly
Makes fidelity a challenge
(doable)
Makes love
The risky pleasure though no better quality
Of quantity in
Life
And the better
Open
Lasting things therein
Acquired
Fleshly
And abstract
And
So in this a
Pleasant day desired
For
You
The day and then
Romantic and-or reflective evening
As we please
While
Maybe dove-like and snake-like
In
And with the too often the imposing and
Suppressive world
The division faithful make
Like that
Spirit and flesh
Though they and with the world made
Good
C L Couch
Matthew 10:16
Photo by Sei on Unsplash
of John 3:17
for God
did not send
the child of God
into
the world
to condemn the world
but that
through the child
the world
and all the world
might
be saved
for God so loved
c l couch
photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
the good season that lasts
the week after
time of discipleship
like being free of Pharaoh
free
now
of similar devils
new obligations based
on old beliefs
and
now
regeneration
not an easy life
in the spirit
old and new temptations
to parry
disillusionment as
after
last Friday
until the vigil moment
Sunday
which is maybe how sometimes
faith
appears
fast like a bird
settling like
rain
a life re-breathed
a new season that in temperate climes
speaks to changing colors
and
thermometer degrees
and while these quarters will continue
the life
in the spirit
we know
now
shall not have an end
as long as we’re inclined
and others
all of us go on
face the choice
to belong
adhere
and have renewed breath
in the new time
in the gathering that is church
only people
by
its Greek definition
and goodness the soft
yoke
the easy
weighted burden
which faith allows
maybe
hopes near all traditions
c l couch
first full week of the Easter season
photo by Julia Elliot on Unsplash
Hearing a New Commandment
Bread and wine
For body
Wind for spirit
Earth
For creation
These show the nature of
The Lord
In closest metaphors
Like mustard seeds
For faith
And there are other metaphors
For appreciation
And
For learning
But these are things we have
And may know
Easily
Even rather thoroughly
That any might believe in
What they represent
And so
Have faith
In the intimate way
The better things are and have
Been made
Bread
Wine
Wind
Earth
Learn
Believe
Love
Live
C L Couch
for Maundy Thursday
John 13:34-35 (and in Matthew 22)
Matthew 11:15, 13:9
Photo by Assad Tanoli on Unsplash
Heat
(a kind of review)
Fire burns
Which means that for survival
Fire’s good
And yet fire destroys
The fuel we place
But
Everything that gets away
The flames that ruin homes
For animals
For us
And everyone
And everything
Of course
That burns
The spirit of the Lord
We equate with
Fire
And I don’t know what is means
By denotation
To fire as in to separate from
A job
Still
It is ubiquitous
It seems
Like “they”
And though its forms seem drastic
As in warming
As in cooking
So we live
And by heat often through the night
And yet
To take away survival
Too
There being the matter of its
Wildness
That is the problem
That makes the thing hideous to
Destroy
Without fixing as much
As only to build over for
Recourse
Yet there is God
Again
Whose spirit is not wise the way
We think is wise
And is not
Tame
The way we think only in formal matters
Should God
Be relegated
Rather
God is wild
Even in wildness
You know
The wilderness
Which we won’t like for lack
Of building
Compartmentable
Purchasable
Convenience
(and the promoting of a market)
And
Who knows how God might feel but
Uses such heaths and
Pagan places
Anyway
Tame and wild
Which shall we have
Of course
But both
Let God normalize
And let go
If lovingingly
Amok
Like fire
In a frame
And who sets the flame
(out of
lovingly flammable
inflammable materials)
But the tame
The comfort in
The very God while also dwelling
In the zealous flame that both
And must
Love
As well as
And often even as
The heat
And I guess we must mean
The heat of all kinds
C L Couch
Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash
“Bonfire Night”
What
(and why)
So what is love
But that we love each other
Undesiring
Maybe
But love regardless
Making mistakes
If minorly regarding timing
To being
And to keep going
And majorly
As in the trying of each faithfulness
Deserving faith
Yet
Facing
Letting go
Love does let go
In earthly jurisdiction
Though
Informally love begins
And should maintain itself
Love
As a family
After all
In all the shapes and
Sizes
Even states and nations might
Take on
Love is
Not weak
But is
Negotiation
Love once begun
As love
Should remain
And
Does remain
Though life must have its way as well
And there are
Separations
Finally
Through finally
Though imperfections
Imperturbable shall
Not last
But find their end
When all shall be renewed in
The right way
So love lasts
And its health must be allowed to us
While
We have here
Until
We hope
We’re there
To find the hale and lasting parts
Really do
Faithfully
Delightedly
Persist
Even as a new kind
Of forever
And we may wait in all this
Wait as in count
Also
Wait as in attend
Attend as in show up
Also
Attend to serve
(a good reason for
showing up)
So let love
Then
Be love
Let it mature
Like wine that should grow
Before delighted here
If once
And then forever
At the table where
Like Philemon’s pitcher
Shall be
Renewed
With better
For us at the table
(and may we all be there)
In that house
And at
That feast
On the other side
That love
Shall take us there
C L Couch
Photo by Haley Owens on Unsplash
we love like winter
days that underneath the cold
are warm with home
c l couch
photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash
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