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Doctrine by Tempest

(x = space)

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Doctrine by Tempest

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And should I turn

To the Spirit,

How shall she say

Or guide?

To love in all things,

Though that

Can be a mystery

Like faith

And should I ask for grace

Or is that bestowed

In quantities

Already

Measured out by God,

Dispensed by angels?

I don’t know,

I think grace might be wild,

Ready to fall itself

Into the crisis

Spreading all the elements

And changing time

For

Working things,

Which means perhaps

That prayer

Is unchained, too,

And to do so

Into the storm

In terror

And unformed bequest

Well, it counts

x

C L Couch

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Hurricane Map

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Yemen

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Sunday Best

(x = space)

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x

Sunday Best

(for Juneteenth)

x

I celebrate from a distance,

Thinking of church

As an invitation

I received

Several years ago

In a Black church in Louisville,

Kentucky

x

I was there for meetings

And on

Sunday morning

We went to a church

Some of us

Had known about

x

Arms rose into the air

For hours, and the choir

Never seemed

To stop

x

And, I’m sorry,

I don’t remember the

Preaching

But remember the music

And the dancing in the air

Of arms and words

Carried up

By song

x

And if the Spirit could be

Smoke, we

We wouldn’t breathe

But as it’s air

We breathed in life

And exhaled

New visions

x

And we were welcomed,

Such was love

In the airy cloud

That prismed every color

With invitation

Courtesy

And movement

For outsiders

x

We were there for hours

Without knowing

This was Sunday best

At its best

I’ll be a part of it again

Someday

x

For there

There was freedom in the

Spirit

As there should be a day for it

Then every day

Every day a work

And play

For freedom

Numinous

And real

x

C L Couch

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Spirituality

Photo by Thiago Barletta on Unsplash

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2

Without Further Ado

(x = space)

x

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Without Further Ado

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I’d like to say something

About God

Not because God needs me to

God is a spirit

God is love

These are not original things

To say

God is a lion,

The lion of Judah

Also nothing new

Though rather wondrous

God is mine

And also God is waiting

Though I think

We tend to think

That it’s the other way around

x

That we wait for God

And once God arrives,

We wait on God

Sometimes the waiting

Either kind

Is cheery

Sometimes it’s not

We wait for God to relieve us

Either of comfort or

Responsibility

We wait for answers

To a local hell

That breaks our spirits

As the ground

Might break

Near a volcano

Or as a sinkhole

(we have sinkholes where

I live)

x

Then to have God appear

To speak

Or touch on our hearts

But we will not serve

(that kind of waiting)

Because things have been too awful,

Thank you very much

How about

You serve me for a while,

x

Which will happen

God will serve

God serves,

In fact,

To have made everything

To arrange for energy

In nature

To bring light and dark

Rain and sun

Snow in winter

Water steaming off leaves

In summer

(or all the time in tropics)

Maybe there is nothing more

God will want to do

x

And yet I think

God is not only creator

But newly-creating

And creative

Explain the platypus

Or bird-of-paradise

Or human will

With the lack of it

Everywhere else

In nature

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God is many things,

Which might mean

Always new

Nearby a platypus

In grace

x

C L Couch

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John 4:24, 1 John 4:3, Revelation 5:5

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Istanbul sky from September 2005.

Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash

Istanbul Sky, Istanbul, Turkey

Published on June 6, 2019

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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

Keeping Faith in Time

Keeping Faith in Time

 

Big days are coming

Liturgically speaking

For practitioners of child and

Parent faiths

Maybe today should have gone quietly

There’s daily service

To attend to

I don’t know how to make

Every day spiritually special

As one of those practitioners, I should

But weak flesh and sometimes

Unwilling spirit,

Which is to say I’m human

So are you

Not as an excuse for anything

While there are certain things, at large and internal,

To give in to

There are things we must keep trying for

Let this day found goodness

In the next one

And if we miss a step

Let’s remember certain rhythms

And their seasons

Allow for discord

(against the chord)

Without ruining the music

Might make it better

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Zachary Nelson on Unsplash

Bethel College, Mishawaka, United States

 

Holey Week 4

 

1

Tree of Life

Tree of Life

 

The soul must be amazing

Some say it’s like a bird

And why not

 

I don’t mean a matter for debate

I mean the spirit that’s inside us

That leaves us when

We can bear no more

 

Where it catches next, I do not know

Branches in a tree

What has it for keeping

 

I think it is somewhere

I guess it might be doctrine

And so for argument

To say it owns eternal

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Kushagra Kevat on Unsplash

 

2

Breathe Through It

Breathe Through It

 

What is it but

The wind,

Ruach, pneuma

What is it but breathing

In and out, back in

And back out again

Autonomically, thank goodness

I’d hate to have to think about it

Or blinking

Or a heartbeat

Sometimes we need a push

And then there’s oxygen

In a canister

If it doesn’t seem to work, that can

Be frightening

After a heart attack, when the EMTs

Arrive or at the hospital,

First thing it seems there’s oxygen

Pressed into the nostrils

Good thing, I’m thinking

And typically there’s nitroglycerine

(now there’s an irony in invention)

That eases the chest

And tries to split the head

Into pieces

 

Imitations of the spirit

All to keep us breathing

I’m thankful

Honestly, for both

The breath that keeps me going,

That takes me home

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Alain Wong on Unsplash

Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard, Canada

 

4

Attending Nuclei

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

 

4

Every Time I Feel

Every Time I Feel

 

Every time I write

I might mean to do the spiritual

Thing, idea, icon

Proposition

(I know it’s okay if I don’t)

Not to moralize

Though I suppose there is that, too

Not question training, either

 

But to say the numinous is here

Real as a knife

Diaphanous as insect wings

Forever as gravity

(there are fields in space)

Earth itself a lesson for

Eternity

And the need for choice

To have it

 

I think God is present

In the grocery store

Between the dog’s shoulders where

I rub

Riding on the new back bumper

Installed after the accident

 

God is inside the mosquito

Next to the disease

Maybe to apologize

As if to say, you chose this way

Back in the garden

Though maybe you hate me for it

Maybe you want to know I want everyone

To be well

Maybe you don’t

 

There is the book, the letters on a page

The mountaintop, the solid roots

Beneath

God is not these things

But is with them all

And with us in the shallow or the deep

In something no one knows

And the everything under the sun

That no one’s ever overlooked

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Chen YiChun on Unsplash

 

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