the inmate's journal : spring fragrance vii

i paused, confused.  the lord in my mind demanded that my hand go further, the lord in hers would take my hand away.  i compared the two lords.  mine flared and whimpered, like fireworks in the rain; hers stood fast and firm.  i retreated over a sea of emptiness, and afterwards she held my damp brackish paws and prayed for both of us.

 

dear jesus,

 

judas and i are sinners.  we aren’t the people you want us to be.  we have failed at being your children and constantly prefer our wills to yours, though time and time again our plans end up ruining others’ lives and our lives.  but when we follow your will, when we trust you and love you and make ourselves entirely your servants, we know that everything works according to your will and things are the way they should be.  even when sometimes to our very human eyes they don’t seem like that.

 

judas is a man and i’m a woman and we know that according to the mysteries of your creation men and women, when they’re alone … sometimes are tempted to fall into sin.  help us jesus.  help us to fully conform to your path of righteousness.  not just in the temples of our flesh but even in our minds, where the world can’t see but you can lord.  help us to wash our minds so that they shine with the purity of heaven and we won’t be ashamed when you stoop and look into our cupboards.  help us to leave nothing unwashed and make even our locked closets worthy of your name.  this is our prayer jesus.  amen.

 

afterwards we sat beside each other silently while she clasped my hands and wept small tears of joyful repentance.

 

physicists have told us the world is made of quarks and nothing.  mystics and movie stars tell us the world is made of love.  thinkers say it’s words and craftspeople technique and politicians power and merchants money.  but i tell you—the world is madness and desire, and all else changing fashion on these monstrous and eternal siblings.

 

thank god, then, for institutions, which wear pants of order, shirts of sanity, and dresses of method; which hide truth’s rough nudity.  and if the church should call its wardrobe god, the corporation pragmatism, and the academy knowledge and research … let them, thank them, praise them.  their words are beautiful and their structures fine.

 

but no one who’s seen behind the eyes of language believes them.