13th September, 2017

Was there ever a time of simplicity?
I have borne witness to the tangled garden,
And the tangled web of the thrice-clouded sky,
And the tangled strings of a smogged pigeon wing,
And the tangling of a half-massacred mouse, fur gummed with stoat saliva, a heartbeat waiting to die.
And I have wanted to bend my knee and beg, "Release me from myself!"
But You are the same God whose nature is always to have mercy.
You have pared my prayer to resistlessness,
Only an upward eye and acquiescence;
Only,
Thy will be done.

Why did You strip me of all the other prayers?
There are tangles in me that are crying out for combing:
Why must You mute me when I beg for simplicity?
I want to bargain;
I want to suggest Your ways to You, to author Your ways for You;
I want to say, "Take away my tangles! Have mercy! Give me a comb!"
And I want it to be done.
But You are the same God whose nature is always to have mercy.
There is nothing I have asked for that You have not granted;
There is nothing You have granted that I haven't repented.
And so my prayer closes to a point,
One essential straggled heartbeat.
Only,
Thy will be done.

Was it necessary for me to be a fool, mind-maimed?
Could I not have had the wisdom to be good, the goodness to be wise?
Was it necessary for me to be a farce,
Tangled as a tumbleweed,
Craving with the pain of childbirth a prelapsarian simplicity?
I am knotted as a manrope.
I keep picking at myself futilely trying to pull myself undone, trying to unravel.
I want to beg for simplicity,
But You steel my tongue. 
It is only,
Thy will be done.

One day, if it is Your will, I will stop resisting.
I will let the tangles be.
I will bear witness to the fallen garden,
And understand that when You said You would have me perfect
You meant Your perfection, not mine.
I will bear witness to the tangles in my soul,
The knot that You have tied,
And know that 
You are the same God whose nature is always to have mercy.

And my will will be
Only,
Thy will be done.