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Create in Me

(x = space)

x

x

Create in Me

x

The Spirit of God

Might not

Be inside the tree

But the Spirit

Might dance with the tree

And many trees

From time to time

I don’t know

How things are invested

x

The Spirit of God

Might be in the tree

When exigency

Requires

x

God is a rock

As a metaphor

But not the real thing

Having made the real thing

x

There is that

Burning bush

That burned and didn’t burn

God used

And rearranged

The matter of

The bush in that encounter

x

So maybe with the atoms

Of existence

The Lord loves to live beside

God or God’s agents

Asking for

Rearrangements

From time to time

To suit a miracle

A message for

Sixth-day creations

Who can have God inside

Intertwining

Spirits

When desired

x

C L Couch

x

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Photo by Conscious Design on Unsplash

x

2

Momentum

(x = space)

x

x

Momentum

(for friends)

x

You know,

I write several things

A day

And then choose

One of them

Some days I only write

One thing

And I use that

I tell myself that if there’s

Nothing, then I won’t

Have anything

To share

And that has to be

All right

Occasionally, that happens

Not so often

If I have access to my

Small machines

Among them the device

Inside

x

I say this because

This is where I am today

Not quite Pooh Corner

I admit

I cannot do everything

I want and like the apostle

Sometimes I do

The thing I hate

Though I think it’s more

That I don’t do

The thing I want

Even love

To do

x

I could ask

Where is the energy

Of youth, that

Sweet bird,

Though I think we know

That energy is finite

Like the push-pull

Universe

And that we always tire

So we

Run the race we can

Then rest

x

I know

You’re at the

Starting line

With me each day

I want to be with you

We go

And if we’re smart

We’ll rest

When there’s been enough

Join me today

Won’t you

In the race

That for us

Is cosmic laced,

Spiced, intertwined

With spirit

(or have spirit

laced with cosmic

thinking the spirit understands

either way)

The cosmic race

The spirit race

The human race

x

C L Couch

x

x

Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma in the evening light

Photo by Frantisek Duris on Unsplash

Roque de los Muchachos, Spain

x

Romans 7:14-15

(Hebrews 12:1 et al)

x

1

Missio

(x = space)

x

x

Missio

x

Oh, Lord,

Too many things

Are going wrong

And yet I’m here

You are here

Things could be worse

It always can be said

And it’s true

How precious are my things

Over someone else’s?

Well, they’re not:

Not to say that

I don’t count

Maybe it’s to speak

To the preciousness

Of things,

Which are not

But life, well yes, life

Matters

It’s what we have

And all we have when

We go to the other side

x

So what matters?

Maybe nothing much

Except the spirit

Except that on this side

Of things,

There should be

So much less

Suffering

Especially the kind we can

Inflict on each other

Imagining

If we didn’t start so many

Wildfires

You know that most of them

Are human-made

You know

Amen

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Alex Lvrs on Unsplash

x

2

Doctrine by Tempest

(x = space)

x

x

Doctrine by Tempest

x

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

x

x

Hurricane Map

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Yemen

x

4

Sunday Best

(x = space)

x

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

x

x

Spirituality

Photo by Thiago Barletta on Unsplash

x

2

Without Further Ado

(x = space)

x

x

Without Further Ado

x

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

x

God is many things,

Which might mean

Always new

Nearby a platypus

In grace

x

C L Couch

x

x

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

x

Istanbul sky from September 2005.

Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash

Istanbul Sky, Istanbul, Turkey

Published on June 6, 2019

x

1

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

 

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