"Poetry in Prose"
by Mary Lou Martin
June 2, 2005
I wanted to write this as a poem,
But the words were hard to form.
My heart knows what I want to say,
My brain knows not how to say it.
So I will just say what is on my mind.
It won't rhyme or be clever prose.
The words in my head will tumble and fall.,
Have patience as I explain my woes.
You see I struggle with right and wrong.
NO, I mean I struggle with good and evil.
NO, I mean I struggle to do what God wants.
What I mean is, I have sinned…again and again.
I didn't mean to, it just happened.
Well that's not exactly true.
It didn't just happen.
I LET it. I encouraged it.
So now I struggle with my sin.
We wrestle and go back and forth.
I know what I should do.
Walk away and leave it forever.
That word "forever" seems huge.
Can I really do without it forever?
It has become part of me,
A fact I know all too well.
Some mornings I wake up
And say to myself, "this is the day."
This is the day when I'll quit and then,
I find that I'm with it again.
Some people think "it" isn't a sin.
They consider it a social thing.
I do and I don't, I can't decide.
So I indulge…again and again.
5 comments:
I'm guessing "it" is something you can't walk away from on your own. Is there a way those of us around you can help?
I liked reading the poetry. I is a needed respite from the prose that I constantly read.
About the content, I don't know if this helps or not, but I think sometimes we think of sin in an ineffective way-- not wrong, just ineffective. I think the Bible makes a good case for sin not being a "thing" but a state of being (ex. "I am in sin."). That state of being is spiritual distance from God. When we are near God, we are more holy; We we are at our furthest from God, we are more sinful. The actions that we typically consider as a tangible sin are merely our reaction to that state of being, which can change from day to day and minute to minute. I think this is further exemplified in Jesus Christ. He was without sin not just because he always did what was right, but because he was closer to God than anyone who has ever lived. He died, took on all of our sin (i.e. complete separation from God-- Hell), and rose to give us new life without sin, but only if we accept it. The afterlife is this epidomized: Heaven is the absence of sin (i.e. eternal union with God), while Hell is complete separation from God.
Again, I don't know if that helps you or not, but I find it helps me understand the role of sin in my life. I am inherently sinful because of the inherent separation from God that all humanity shares. Christ, however, is the bridge to God and the pathway away from sin. That's why I ALWAYS turn to the 4 Gospels when facing a problem before turning anywhere else in the Bible. In my opinion, there is more wisdom in those four books than in the rest of the Bible combined. (Forgive me if that sounds blasphemous.)
I liked what Jason had to say on the issue of sin. My understanding is that there are not "sins" so much as there are symtoms of sin. For instance, stealing may be a symptom of greed. Murder may be a symtom of hate, or pride or envy, or a number of things. Sin is reflected in our heart moreso than our actions.
I've been dealing with selfishness lately. It seems that I am constantly serving myself and concerned only with how I can serve me. This is the sin, even though it may show itself as doing something that will hurt someone else just to serve me.
ML,
After June 30th, when I'm retired - WOO-HOO!!- I hope we can spend some time together and talk about this "sin" thing. I struggle, too, and often ask myself how to let go of, or better yet, rid myself of, those sins that just keep being a part of my life. Let's get together soon with some iced tea (sugarless, or course) and help each other with our battles.
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