(x = space)
x
x
monday protest
x
get up
listen to the noise
and go
and this is how it starts
x
a day
in the modern world
x
no,
thank you
iI’ll stay here
in the drab place
and time
x
of dark and cold
of sleep
and safety
well
x
i won’t grow up
not i
x
if you must leave
i’ll stay
x
c l couch
x
photo by eduardo mallmann on unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Wealth of Nations
x
O God
For invocation
Oh, God
To plea
Our world groans
With war
And the imbalance
Of the greedy
Systems
x
Justice should be a system
Greed is not good
Unless you’re winning
For a while
While all our cells corrupted
May yet cry for mercy
x
The ears to hear
Might be
The last to go
x
God
Help us
And forgive us
The Earth is ours
And we forget
And leave it to a few
Who vote for nothing
But self-fattening
And a self-deceiving glimpse
Of real power
x
Let all rise
(the poorly-
agendaed, too)
To march
Or stand in place
To sing
As if
Accompanying Earth
With all the antiphons
The spheres above
Below
That glide
And when against each other
Glory in the sacred touch
The music
Of all order
And all chaos,
Arranged
As creation’s gift
x
And this is wealth
Not the other
Once we feed each other
And can stand or march
(or sit with age
or disability
and purpose)
To hear the strains
Of everything
And offer ours
x
Our gift
Unto the glory
Of Earth
And all-around’s,
Of God’s all
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Illiya Vjestica on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
God = Not a Sadist
(read God equals not a sadist)
x
Pain is good
It teaches us
It tempers us
We come out wholer people
Better for it
Pain is the megaphone
Says Lewis
Pain is loud
Ginsberg might say
(might say)
Pain howls
x
But it doesn’t howl
Because it’s good:
Pain is bad
It hurts
Great pain hurts
Great
After great pain
The formal feeling comes
Does God allow pain?
Does God wish it?
I don’t know
Christ in the garden
Asked not to feel hurt
And he was
Severely
Bloody
Hurt
Until he died
We say he had to die
Well and good
For theology
And there was real joy
In his returning
Perhaps he felt it first
x
I don’t like to hurt
I hope you don’t
I’m in pain now
My neck, my lower back
My eyes from lack of sleep
I have heart disease
And it seems my heart and lungs
Work against me
When it hurts to breathe
Though they are not the source
They are victimized
By fluid
That should not be flowing,
Pressing there
x
Worse, my brother dies from cancer
And it hurts
The medicine might help
It also creates new trials
A passing between pain
And something like sedation
And somehow in the middle
Is what’s living
x
And you hurt
I don’t know how
And the world hurts
In every fracture
x
So where is God?
Where is the love of God?
Where is God is love?
God is there
Love’s there
If God allows
Much less or much more
Created pain
Then there is love as well
Also created
And I think
Preferred
x
But pain is hard
It’s not good
We say pain is gain
But it isn’t
Pain is a signal that
Something’s wrong
And we’ll find out
Everyone finds out
The world dissembles, but
Pain is true
Pain sometimes teaches
Usually after the fact
Or in someone else’s story
x
I think if pain
Could not be real
If we couldn’t have it
That would be
Better
We might say we’d
De-evolve without it
Maybe so
But then
The world would have to change
And would be changed
We don’t know how
We live with pain
We even bear it
When it won’t
Go away,
x
Which doesn’t mean
We should like it
That God should like it
Wish it
Before the fall,
We might well guess
There was no pain
x
Sorry
There’s pain now
I don’t wish for you
Your pain means
A great deal to me
I cannot make it
Magic
Go away
Or mine
We’re stuck
And while we’re stuck
Comes all the learning
All the tempering like
Metal fired
And then struck
At least we’re not the ashes
At least we’re here
For everything
Imagined,
More so
Realized
And that’s what we have to say
Pain is real
x
C L Couch
x
x
(a Sunday School discussion from James 1, an epistle in the Christian New Testament)
x
notes (references)
Mere Christianity
“Howl”
“After Grean Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes”
x
[photographer’s narration] When we visited Utö, the most outer island of this beautiful archipelago in the place we call Finland, I allowed myself to be guided by the incredible energy of Inca, the daughter of the family we were visiting there. She took me to a series of abandoned bunkers from the times this island was a military strategic point and there I found this graffiti that represent very well the feeling of all that has to do with military, war, conflict and drama. With love from Korpo.
Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Sides
x
If God is for us
Whom shall stand against us
Well, they will
They are they
They will
These are not shadows
Except in meaning,
Haunting for a while
Our better selves and motives
x
They are there
They are ghosts
(with apologies to ghosts)
Who look as if
They are substantial
And their weapons
Somehow
Wound and even kill
x
They (with those)
Tempt us from our fate
One by one
And altogether as
People loved by God
Who have a purpose covered
For the moment
Until the glass
Is clear
x
The battle won
Life prefigures death,
Better shows the shape
Of life again
x
C L Couch
x
If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:31
x
x
Earth Is Ours
x
Do you hate the sides?
I often do
Jerusalem and Antioch
East and west
(Istanbul and Rome
as part of that)
China and Taiwan
Town and gown
City and countryside
North and south
And much, much worse
Cain and Abel
So that only Seth remains
For legacy
One without three
x
We need our groups
We don’t need the borders
In between
We should have the joy
To have our own
The strength in defending
Everyone
The Earth
Our own
Everyone’s Earth
To own
x
What does this mean?
It’s right to ask
Since we ask
And everything is lent
And legacy is life that
We cannot gift ourselves
But there’s a promise
Prophecy
Assurance in or as
What we believe
x
What we shall own
Though frankly we must share
The bigger parts
x
C L Couch
x
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
An Angel Visits Francis
x
I speak to God today
God is quiet
Not uninvolved
With nothing noisy
To contribute
Beyond the rain outside
The singing tires
The occasional movement
Inside
From a neighbor
Or from me
x
I wonder when an angel
Visits Francis
How it goes
No, don’t get up
Relax the hand with the ring
No doubt you lift the office
With an instinct
Anymore
I’m here to rest with you
For a moment
To be still
You know the issues
And the crises in the world
One of us will tell you
When there are
Awful surprises
You are doing well
We are
I am
Sorry when you’re sick
The age and job
Do take it out of you
You could retire
Like your peer
Sometimes I think
He has the better part
But I don’t think you’ll give up
‘Til you have the sense
You’re done
Remember I am here
We are here
We fly around you
Dance with happiness
Or grief
You know we are not
The round things of the Renaissance
But are might beings
Wide in span
And awful
As in full of awe
To know us
And carry power
You know whose
And are ready
Should you wish us to defend
Evil forefend
Should you wish to rest with us around
And when you’re ready
To be escorted
Even carried
Home
x
We are will
And we love you
x
Back to me
And God is ready for your voice
When you wish to speak
Or keep it in your mind
The better things
Are in your heart
We’re told,
Which means your spirit
The spirit of the Lord
Is with you, too,
Waking or sleeping
Like the song
Agents of God
Angels and nature
Sing around you
Sometimes difficult
Impossible, it seems,
To hear
But singing nonetheless
The music of the spheres
The song that’s in your sphere
Of hope
And love
To resonate with good things
To navigate the bad
There is help
In that
In both
x
C L Couch
x
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
Dear Earth
x
I don’t know what to say
One person can’t apologize
We destroy you
And we need you
We like you for you move
Unlike the decorations
On the ancient vase
You move
With beauty
And with truth
x
You have renewing skills
We won’t take them on
Or indeed respect them
We need pollution
Acid rain
Discarded plastic
Unsafe water
Trash as mountains
Outside cities,
All to justify
Our way of life
Our shiny, blindered way of life
That is so good
To look the other way
x
Toward the moon?
Toward Mars?
Is there a hope
A plan
We can leave you
When our destructive preferences
Have finished you?
I think we see the Earth as vast
And it is
You are
So we have time
To reach the corners,
So to say
x
Eventually,
Horizons shall meet
The burning and the melting
From each side
The drowning
The dissolving of safe ground
Between
And overwhelming water
Taking us away,
Which we can’t drink
Or with which to build
To clean
To take our oxygen
x
How shall we change?
How can we say we’re sorry?
We try to change
But we’ve set up our war in this
Anti-polluters fight polluters
With the great indifference
In between
x
Compartmentalized,
There are few agreements
x
Like broken bulkheads,
There is no more breathing
To share
Each box of us collapses
Into an airless deep
The ship of Earth
Of you
Founders and
Shall sink
into gravity, under magnetic waves
Of other worlds
Whose LaGrange we used to share
In orbital mediation
With satellites
Asteroids and meteoroids
Not always in place, admittedly
And comets
Farther off yet neighborly
The suns that also spun out worlds
Other life forms
After here
To try at wholeness
Integration
While there had been us
Who had a turn
And turned
x
Whose only hope
Might be in turning more
Turn again,
Which is repentance
x
C L Couch
x
x
A calving glacier. Witness to global warming.
x
(x = space)
x
x
Wonderful Counselor
x
Should we meet with God
I shall be glad
I might become chagrined
At what God will tell you
While I’m there
But I’m sure the conversation
Will be necessary
There might be understanding and
Reconciliation
Our lives on Earth an untrue experience
Now washed and cleared
The dark glass clean
Through which, if we all will,
All forgiven
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Susan Mohr on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Eligibility Requirements
James 1:22-27
x
What does the Lord
Ask of us?
Many things, I think
That Noah build an ark
That Abraham sacrifice
His son upon an altar
Made for animals
x
That Rahab should save
The spies of Israel
In Canaan
That Mary should conceive
Without her affianced
And then give birth
x
That Cain should confess
That sinners should confess
That we should be
Doers and not hearers only
Of the word
x
That we should seek justice
And do justice
That we should love God
And each other
Be generous with enemies
With material and with prayer
x
I’d like to say it’s easy
As salvation is
Through grace
And belief
But frankly it’s the start
Of a grown-up life of faith
In which there should be joy
And humor, too,
And if there isn’t
Then we have been told
In someone’s catechism
Something wrong
x
C L Couch
x
x
James is a brief, epistolary work in the Christian New Testament.
x
Photo by Taras Chernus on Unsplash
“I am from Ukraine, there is a war going on in my country now. Your help is more important than ever.”
x
(x = space)
x
x
And, But, Or, Nor, For, Yet, So
x
What do I do
When God is gone?
A question I don’t have to ask
Because it doesn’t happen
God doesn’t go away
I do
I go away when I want
To think of someone else
Of something that I want
That I shouldn’t have
When I need
Or presume to need
Enough to bump out God
From my awareness,
Which qualifies the need
As something else
x
This is straightforward:
I choose to have God in my life
Closer to me, anyway
Since God is there
Creating
Maintaining
Weeping or laughing at
What we do
Preparing for Parousia
Yet
Cherishing each moment
The now we have
We linear beings
Meaning for us
It’s a saving moment
To a saving moment
x
God is close
God is inherent
In electrons
And cellular nuclei
God will become more obvious
As we wish
As we choose
As we ask it so
(the asking’s prayer)
The devil has many ways
To snare us away
It is agenda
Of the kind that pushes will
And understanding
Inside a frame that illustrate
An attitude
Against people and the
Environment
The Earth we stand or glide
Or rest upon
All of which, the devil says,
Is unimportant
When favoring
Profit
Unhuman strategies
(inhumane)
That only matter as
Winning so that the rest
Are losers
x
Who is lost?
The burden’s hard
The burden’s easy
It’s paradox
Of faith
Of belief in God who’s only known
Through evidence unseen
Who wins a case through this?
x
Such contradictions
Such opposites
The world we love must be eschewed
If we would live, there is first
The inevitability of dying
Sheesh
No thank you
Or thank you
Our will to embrace
To choose
To live in love
With the good in everything
With faith
And hard belief that has gentle edges
In what we show each other
(as in manifest)
In what we sense
And how we deal
With everyone
With everything
By which and in which
A spirit accompanies
For good
For upbuilding
For faith
And, yes, for love
x
We live in hope
That God is there
That God is there when we return
Or when we turn around
In attitude
Repentance
Sorry and a new embrace
Of faith
Gove love this Earth
And the extraordinary creatures
That you’ve made
That is each of us
Not that we are perfect
Or perfectly anything
But in everyone
And everything
The three remain close by
The three remain close by
x
C L Couch
x
x
By Finoskov – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109525350
x
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