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New Nicaean Thinking

New Nicaean Thinking

 

Fully human

Fully divine

That’s what we say

In answer to an old debate

Whose contesters have

Been dust a while

And still we say it

Because there are those who

Who want only flesh

While there are others

Who would only have perfection

Inside a ghostly presence

 

I don’t mean Hallowe’en

When the veil is thin

But every day, impossibly

God is only flesh

Or a spirit

I didn’t realize

(and don’t)

That, perhaps attaining

Certain saving ranks,

God could be rendered

I suppose beneath the mitre

Or in a meeting room

 

Though God might be outside

In holy, wild majesty

Waiting for the conference to end

To show debate instead

In hurricanes

Or life inside the vacuum

Of space, waiting for visitation

 

There’s flesh

There’s spirit

They stand and move apart

Or somehow they’re conjoined,

Which would be awe

 

Try to understand a black hole

Or transcendent Pi

Find life inside CERN

Or the baby,

Once conceived

 

Maybe we’ll find that we can

Create amazement, too

(I think we’ve done it)

Maybe we’ll be inventing God

As Voltaire did or did not mean

To advise,

 

Or we’ll say it is a better machine

Matching the workings of

A molecule or cell

Nanobots

Realizing dispensation

Plenary indulging

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Don Shin on Unsplash

Stanford Dish

 

2

Glorious

Glorious

 

Food brings us together

I hear someone talking about

This on TV

I’m sure it’s true

Though I have experienced very little

Of it

There’s always tension at the table,

Over the food, convicted in

The conversation

Maybe less in a restaurant, which

Might be the answer

Or to be Italian

Or Mexican

I’ve had great meals with both groups

As families

Welcomed as a demonym

And if there wasn’t joie de vivre

(maybe I should be French)

Then what were we doing here?

We could take pills

And concentrate on something else

Life on Mars

Eating alone,

Each in a room

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Piseth Yun on Unsplash

 

2

This Is Not a Test

This Is Not a Test

(Psalm 121:1-2)

 

It isn’t that the help

Comes from the hills

But that it comes

From God

It might come from the

Hills, or it might come

From the valley

Or the desert or the

Outskirts of the city or

Fallow farmland

 

It might come from Rahab

Or from Zipporah

Or from Ruth

It might come from

All expected places

Or from surprises,

Say,

Balaam’s donkey

 

Don’t box in the help

From God

There’s no container,

Anyway

Let it flow like Micah

And all salient prophecy

 

Trust, now that’s the

Hard part

When there is no formula

Beyond a prayer

Or looking up in hope

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by David Monje on Unsplash

Girona, Spain

 

9

Prayers for Buddy-Boo

Prayers for Buddy-Boo

 

I know there are things

happening.  Wars both

declared and un- or not

so much. Freedoms

challenged by despotism.

I probably don’t need

to mention disease.

But there’s a little—I mean,

little—dog who always

treats me with meaningful

indifference, and now

he’s sick.  He could use

help through prayer and-or

some good and hopeful

thinking.  You know I mean

the actual kind.  Saint

Francis would approve and so

would mom. He’s in the

hospital, and the photo

somehow looks both

cute and solemn.  His name

is Buddy, which is his role

to my friend who is

distraught.  She isn’t asking

for your help.  I thought I

would.  And offer thanks

in agency for everyone.

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash

(detail)

 

6

Soliloquying

Soliloquying

(syllogistic)

 

If God is love

And God is a spirit

Then it might, it should

Follow that love is a spirit

And that a spirit is love

 

There are times when matter

Matters more

The flower on a table

The open door

The favor no one asked for

Nothing for a show except

To say

What we should say

 

Love is a spirit

And in something like eternity

Materials are messages

I don’t know how they rack up

When it’s not a game

Though love should be fun

And sad

And hard, sometimes

 

Remembering to keep it small

Might help,

Remembering

The larger things, too

I guess I’m saying

Not because of me

 

Nonetheless

Spirit and matter

Keep it real

 

C L Couch

 

 

notes

 

John 4:24

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

1 John 4:8

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

 

It might be synchronicity, more likely inspiration.  The day before drafting this verse, I was reading Jane Dougherty’s excellent exegesis of two Scripture verses at Jane Dougherty Writes (https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2020/05/21/gospel/).  I so highly recommend her blog (https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/).

 

Photo by Ralf Skirr on Unsplash

 

4

Call the Question

Call the Question

(probably poem-prose)

 

I’d like the Earth

To like us

I’d like to like us, too

Too much is hard

Around the world

Nature’s parts

The parts we’ve made

And otherwise have taken

 

I’m still dealing with

Burnt bread

The smell

I didn’t know the microwave

Could burn bread so well

The toaster, yes

Live and learn

 

That was a mistake

There are things more attributable

To will

Now I’m asking all of us

To think what we have done

And, more importantly, what we

Now might do

 

Family is trite to say of Earth

Or even us

But community is

Acceptable

The recluse doesn’t

Own the planet

Nor does the self-styled magnate

The deserts are inhabited

Like the city

Different sorts of crowded beings

Finding home

And feeling it

 

And if we own, then we

Must own,

Which means accountability

We all have a part in

That who can, who is able

 

How many pebbles, how many

Ponds and circles overlapping

We could make of

Family—I mean, community

Through the smallest things

Each of us might do

 

Examples?

A pandemic,

Who wears a mask?

Who made it?

I have two masks, both made

By friends

Found out my sister and my nephew

Have been making them

And sending them around

Even ones with designer features

For my niece in Colorado

(they’re in North Carolina

I’m in Pennsylvania)

Easy example, anymore

Factories turned ‘round to retool

Templates, provide resources,

Make more

So that front-liners might

Breathe more easily and think about

The great,

Too often grisly

Work, instead

 

I can’t sew

But I can cheer them on

Who can

Maybe that will be job,

Cheerleader

And your job is making sandwiches

Or raising money

Or finding stories,

Seeing that they’re shared

Tired of hearing about the disease?

Well, we’re living it

Too bad

And, sorry, not much of a question

No news there

Except to say (and it’s not news

or shouldn’t be) that

Breaks are good

 

We can have other things,

Of course, and should

Games and walks and making something

Bright

To break the tedium

Or because a lark

Is fine from time to time

as larks are fine to hear

The community needs them all

 

But being drunk

Or otherwise practicing addiction

Goes down hard

Don’t think of it

There is no excuse

In a viral time

(or any)

Or for hoarding, by the way

Aren’t you sick of it?

 

Well, hypocrisy is hard as well

I must admit

I have a couple of rolls

Put by

But not a wall-full

Wait, I always have a couple

Of rolls put by

Well, I am a mask

For something else, I’m sure

I’m sure

 

So where are we?

We’re on Earth

Together, and if together

Has a name, it can be outside

Or humanity

And there are things we need

We can make

And do them

There are patterns that many places

In the Earth (and us)

Can teach

We can learn

We have the chance

If only we can share around

The means

 

We can make

We can mend

How about it?

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mike Swigunski on Unsplash

Reykjavík, Iceland

Northern Lights outside of Reykjavik.

 

10

Slow Glass

Slow Glass

 

The birds are quiet today

The sky is still

Precursors to rain, perhaps

 

Earlier, I saw a squirrel outside the window

On a lower branch

The animal stopped, gray arches for

Its back and a brushy tail

Turned one way and then another

 

We, smaller beast and I, looked at each other

For a while

Already out of reach

We could afford to stare

 

Now we might serve as memories

To each other, through the glass

 

C L Couch

 

“Light of Other Days” is a science fiction short story by Irish writer Bob Shaw. It was originally published in August 1966 in Analog Science Fiction and Fact. The story uses the idea of “slow glass”: glass through which light takes years to pass. Bob Shaw used this idea again in later stories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_of_Other_Days

 

 

Photo by Daniel McCullough on Unsplash

 

8

Ontology

Ontology

 

I don’t know, God

I know you love us

It’s all the rest that can confuse me

Why there is great truth

In nature

We refuse to understand

While we destroy it

Learning nothing but that dollars

Speak not a greater truth

But noisier

So I guess you could say it’s all on us

And we are responsible

But we can also credit you with making us

Why did you do that,

Why are we as we are?

 

We can build

And then tear down

We leave artifacts

That we refuse to learn from

We love clear days

Then smoke them out

With factories and war

Factories to make the war

Viable

Not to mention all the vehicles

We could not pass a law

That says what we make cannot

Destroy us at the same time

Let alone with Earth

I know I go off on things like this

But, really, what’s the point

In planet Earth

If we destroy her?

 

Wisdom is a woman, too,

In a number of traditions

But men are made to ignore women

Treating them like other

Resources

My, don’t they have it wrong

All of it

 

So what’s the answer, God

I’m sure there is an answer

Before it’s all a cynical taking

Climbing on each other toward

An artificial peak

Without wondering what we leave

For children

So they’re left to be like us

Or rebel to find another way

I don’t think I’ll blame them

When they do

 

Maybe our agenda has been

To build another Babel

One structure, one language, one power

Over all the Earth

Determined by us

Goodness, I would hate that

And so would anyone who delights in

Diversity

We made kaleidoscopes

Maybe we should look into them more often

Prismatic colors

Ever-changing order

Not anarchy but beauty in

The light you made

You make

I suppose if we asked to be

People of light

A new adherence to your making and

Your teaching,

Someone would try to pass off some darkness

As the light

Where is your justice, Lord?

We need it and can’t manage it, ourselves

Isn’t there a great mediator, even here

On Earth, among ourselves

Within?

I remember now, it’s love

That I learned in church, even if churches

Forget, hiding agendas instead

Some learn, anyway

And live it so much better than I

These are the ones I need

The ones who live in love

Not perfectly

But persistently

 

We need these people, God

The ones who love

With strength and practicality

Because it’s the better reason

For taking the next step

 

Show us love, Lord

And those who love

The real strength

The foolishness in the world’s eyes

While it digs and flies and wends

Its way toward hell

Each day until the last

But it can’t be for fire of hell

Or fear of it the reason

Love must be embraced

Because it bests fear

Because in the embrace

We see, as sometimes on a clear day

You are there

The God who made us

Allowed the serpent, too

Who gives changes over ages

For all of us to turn our will at last

 

Toward you, into you

Below, above

In better places

And the worst

No peak too high

No pit so deep

But you are there

You gave us will

How about we return it

Using it to do so?

That might be the final irony

You’ve been waiting for

Maybe then we’ll understand

Apocalypse is love

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by sergio souza on Unsplash

 

8

Summits

Summits

 

Hi, Earth

I hope you’re doing well

Though I know you’ve

Been beset with challenges

The heat is rising

Water, too

Islands in the Chesapeake are

Disappearing

And I know this because

It’s local

What is going under elsewhere?

I’ve read about the polar regions,

Too

That’s big news

In every way

What about the corners I don’t

Know of

Who is in those corners who

Know nothing of me?

 

Oh, Earth

You’re probably in trouble

And it’s probably our fault

I count on nature’s

Indifference, but I think it’s getting angry

Could a tornado or a hurricane

Be vengeful?

Hail in indictment,

Earthquakes cracking open

Rage, eruptions open wounds

That must have their way?

 

I don’t know

There is romance in nature, too

I don’t want to lose that

There’s gold in the ocean

Silver in the sky

Diamond where’s there clarity

Gemstone colors everywhere

Though the real wealth

Should be love and understanding,

Which of often indicates

A partnership

Is that still possible?

 

I want to know you, Earth

Travel all your courses

And maybe, were it possible,

To find something new

We could meet around a rock,

So many of us

Celebrate your sponsorship

Of human possibility

Resources for

Exploration

 

But we must give something

Of our own, speaking for

My kind

We can’t attend the rock-table

Empty-handed

With something in our pockets

No tricks up our sleeve

It’s too ideal, isn’t it?

We’re too cantankerous on

Either side

I wouldn’t be surprised to find

We both have our illusions

To fool each other, yes

Also to keep us going

You there,

Us here

It’s cynical

It’s fearful

It’s not, to use another idiom,

(we make idioms of you

salt of the you,

for instance)

Cards on the table

 

So what to do, then

We simply go on, as is?

I cry

You rain

We terrify each other

Ruin things as well

Us by force of will

You by an imbalance

That certain Protestants would say

It our fault, too

Finally, I can only speak for us

And our own

Will and ingenuity

For all you have and all we take

Oh, Earth, I ask of all

We must find ways

To give each other chances

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Denis Linine on Unsplash

 

6

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