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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 3

A Prayer of Failure

A Prayer of Failure

Lord, I am very tired of being a sinner!

I acknowledge that the tiredness comes far more from the fact my sins hurt me than from any sorrow because they hurt You. If it were otherwise my life would undoubtedly be quite different. I don’t even know if I’m capable of changing. But I do thank You for the moments of insight and the moments of genuine sorrow.

Sometimes I fear that I’ll come to the end of my life, and find it has all been frittered away in fear after years of backsliding, and I won’t have enough honesty or love left to turn away from myself and make that last jump into the arms of Your mercy.

Once I thought I was becoming good. It was beautiful to walk down the harbour road on a fine morning in the sunshine of Your love and sing – ‘Ave Maria!’ I suppose it was mainly nonsense. I hadn’t really a clue about how hard I’d find it to actually obey You. I hadn’t a clue about the hard core of resistance to Your will that lay deep inside me.

I could say now – ‘Look, Lord, I love You. I’ve committed this sin and that sin. But from now on I won’t sin. Pour down Your grace and I’ll obey You now and always.

‘But we both know better than that, Lord. It’s not You who cause the break-down, not ever. You do Your part with constant and infinite generosity. When I kiss Your feet the gratitude is real. But my intentions are so shallow that a change in the weather can shift them. My will is so perverse that at the drop of a hat I’m more than ready to leap into the same bag You’ve hoisted me out of.

‘They talk about temptations, Lord, the people who have them. Let’s laugh at that one if you can bear with my self-dislike! I don’t have temptations; I have landslides!

‘I’m sure any nun or priest or intelligent sober-sided layman who’d had page 160 a fraction of the intimate help and all-but-visible love and endless tender patience You’ve extended to me, year after year, would be walking on water and healing the blind by now. But I’m the blind one, Lord. I’m the one who’s longing to be healed – Bartimaeus and all the rest of them rolled into one person.

‘Why exactly am I like this, Lord? Why don’t I walk quietly in Your footsteps? I suppose the problem is pride. If I humiliate myself – and You know I do, often enough, to try to crack the ingrained habit of pride – the next thing is I’m proud of being humble. There’s no road out in that direction.

‘I’m not making any more promises, Lord. Among twelve true men there is always a Judas, the one who promises to be true, who thinks he can be true, but isn’t.

‘Well, then, Lord, I am Judas. The one who never stops betraying You. But I’m not going to hang myself. I’m going to sit at Your feet till the Judgment Day, Your private leper. And I won’t be glum about it either. I’ll sing songs and let the world know that You alone are the Holy One. You alone are entirely good and loving and just and wise and beautiful. Not for a reward this time. Simply because it is true.

‘As for my wretched soul, do what You like with it. You made the sun and the moon and the stars and the rivers. The man who wrote the Book of Job tells the truth when he says no man can comprehend Your power and Your wisdom and Your glory. You let the ants and the butterflies go on living, and the yellow wasp as well, even though he stings people. Let me rest along with them, Lord, in the hollow of Your hand.

‘What was that, Lord? What was that extraordinary thing I heard You say? – “Dear Judas!”

‘Lord, I can’t say anything more.’

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