De Profundis

(x = space)

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De Profundis

(out of the depths)

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I don’t know why

I feel so sad today

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The noise above

The coming storm

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I got some sleep

Am I more aware?

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It’s Saturday

A day to play

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Yet I feel leaden

Weighed down with weights

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The kind that keep us

Sleep at the bottom

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The sea will take her dead

And raise up at the last day

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God will reach

Inside the water

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Pull us up, untie the wraps

The weights will have meant nothing

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The heavy life

Be done

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A life with gravity

A dancing partner now

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C L Couch

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פתק דחוף בין אבני הכותל: אל נקודתיים תן/תני לי, בבקשה, לחיות בחושים ולא במחשבה תודה. נ.ב. לא דחוף = “O Lord, hear my voice” Psalm 130:2 Notes to God at the Western Wall, Jerusalem Jerusalem

By zeevveez from Jerusalem – Psalm 130:2 – God's Mail Box, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36200748

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God Inside

(x = space)

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God Inside

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God inside

Next to the spark

Gently suppling air

Ready for cupping

Should there be

A blast

Working through

The arteries

From outside

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C L Couch

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Heart model to explain how the heart works to patients.

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash

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Diocletian Martyr

(x = space)

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Diocletian Martyr

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In my cell I see a bird

I think the bird is

The spirit of God

I don’t know for sure

Until the bird speaks,

Speaks to me

Without words

This is a real cell

A cell from which I will be taken

To die

At the hands of one

Who can command it

Though cannot command anything

About my soul

God has come to comfort me

To tell me I belong to God

And will be meeting

With God, soon

In a closer way

I could not know on Earth

The pain might be quick

It might be long

The bird does not tell me,

Imperial will having its own way

Despotic yet

Graced with freedom

As is mine*

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I could have been quiet

I needn’t have said anything

When questioned

Or at the corner

Where I told the story

Of God’s goodness,

Standing on the edge

Of all I knew

And soon would lose

I don’t know what happens next

In terms of what I gain

Maybe a mansion

Maybe nothing

I don’t permit myself an expectation

But relationship

Knowing my loved ones

Once here,

Beholding curing

Of my enemies

And me of them

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Great harmony

Before the Lord

And the Lord

Who might dance with me

While the angels sing

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C L Couch

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*(in freedom

   maybe grace

   we are all despots)

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Looking Up

Photo by Prince David on Unsplash

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Puritan Winter

(x = space)

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Puritan Winter

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Snow covers

Rain reveals

Ice seals it all in

Now comes the

Revealing time,

The winter

Against all our

Boasted showings

The green is gone

The brown and black reveal

Who we are

What we have

How plain it can become

Without verdant protection

Without the sheen

Of summer

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But this is good

We have the chance

To be ourselves,

To rely ourselves

On heat

And goodness from above

Below

The goodness of our neighbors

And the sovereignty

Of God above

Below

Wherever is

Creating

And the mortal need

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C L Couch

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Migrating birds over the misty forests of Norway.

Photo by Fredrik Solli Wandem on Unsplash

Heggenes, Norge

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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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Word Processing

(x = space)

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Word Processing

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In the beginning

There was God with the host

There were earth, darkness, abyss

And water

There were words

To explain

To initiate

Decrees

Then division and formation,

Creation as we know the story

Happened

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Later when the story’s told again,

We will say

Everything was made

With a word

The word could have been gravity

Or love

It was love

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C L Couch

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(Einstein is quoted claiming that the greatest force in the universe is not gravity but love.)

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Photo by David Carboni on Unsplash

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An Appointment with God

(x = space)

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An Appointment with God

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I don’t’ have so many appointments

Lately,

For which I’m grateful

In a time of my kind of PTSD,

It’s the weight of stressors

I don’t have to bear

So much

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To get there

To show up on time

To be here when I’m called

To have everything I

Might be needing

Relieved of this

Makes for a better day

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I’d like to live easy

I don’t have much

But to have time

And on the flip side

Lack of bother

On the A side

Coffee and toast

And morning

And a day for you

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Someday will arrive

I keep forgetting

You will arrive

To take me to home

By then,

Maybe I shall be glad

Meanwhile, I keep my faith

With me and then I

Hope with

The Amish

Who say, one by one,

I hope so

When asked about assurance

Of salvation

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C L Couch

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I think it was the poet Julia Kasdorf, as I may have said before, who told me about the typical response when Amish are asked the salvific question.

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Waves

Photo by Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash

Frankreich

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Gaze

(x = space)

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Gaze

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Give me a

Small piece of Earth

For a while

With dust swept in the corner

Without perfection

A hard floor

Some stones for walls

A ledge from which to look

While I can look

Out upon, well,

Everything you’ve made

And the uneasy alliance

You have with

Your creatures

Maybe all of them

Certainly the ones who

Made it out of Eden

Not unscathed

And how much we took with us

No one knows for now

And it’s been a while

And in this place

I’ll ponder you

And us

And our place with each other

In the grander scheme

Of things,

Which for now is

Still a guess

Though sometimes

We think we’re getting closer

But I won’t care about conclusions

Rather the sacraments

In each moment

Normal, mortal

Materials

Turned

Taken inside

To serve a spiritual purpose

However far

A thought of you

And us

Might take us

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C L Couch

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The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre de Caussade

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Photo by Brigi Uhrin on Unsplash

Budapest, Budapest, Magyarország

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Second Book of Genesis

(x = space)

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Second Book of Genesis

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God kept saying

That it’s good

Creation’s good

Each day of it

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To be there

Hear the names

Have God speak into our minds

In pre-fall grace

With understanding

There is delight

And faith

In all this

Without they’re being named

Only the day and night

All the animals

Us

And then a time of rest

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If we had been there

If we could have touched their hands

And drawn them back

From the tree

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C L Couch

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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