Sometimes in forgiveness we forge
perky little formulas for healing and moving on,
except that mostly we just move on,
making a ritual of what once was a sincere effort
to heal and let go.
Self-deception hides self-will.
Self-will attempts to pull truth into your illusion.
Self-love requires sincere and earnest efforts
to reach the parts of us we have rejected.
Self deception copyright marybethscalice June 2018
I want a nice neat little prescription
for my pain.
A bulleted list of spiritual steps to take
from beginning to end.
Where I offer the little turd
of my problem
wrapped in crisp brown paper,
sweetly put on an altar as I say,
Hey, take this will ya?
giving my excrement to God.
hoping then to walk away,
lighter, unburdened,
to simply say,
I am sorry. I won’t do it again.
and then, Amen; going back into life
happy in these shallow amends.
How sly the mind who makes the list,
apart from the heart
whose sorrow is untouched
by the ritual;
whose flesh is weighted by
unexposed guilt.
God has not come
to receive your sh___
and no amount of anointing
will make it holy.
It matters not the size of your story,
He shall not whiff of it,
and pronounce it perfume.But God has come
to put upon the altar,
an axe, a wedge.
Beside your little ball of poop
He asks you place your truth,
the depressed, the despicable,
the raunchy, gross and pitiful
the parts of self you threw
in dark obscurity.
The ax is his breath.
The wedge His strength
cleaving your psyche for
self-deception.
Rupturing the shield
that defends the heart,
that you may feel the consequence
of choices you have made;
That you may accept this
little wad of ca-ca
and all the imperfections
you continue to project
and reject as far too stinky
to come through you.;
That you may embrace the
septic wounds of childhood,
bringing them to light,
to breath, to forgive
knowing all that feeling
is not who you are,
but Who you are
accepts all that passes through,
crying,
laughing,
purifying.
God has come
putting mercy on the altar
and no pile of dung
defiles the axe,
that rests now in the cleft
of His sincerity,
where you dare to
open,
where you dare to heal.
where you dare to feel
the heart break of Christ.
Why would you offer Him
anything less?