Song of Confession

Oh God of the shining face

Mystery of mysteries, whose love out-sings the cherubim,

Mercy of eternity

Bend your grace on me.

I have walked (as all men walk)

With stumbling steps

Tripping over myself

In the rush towards my folly

Bending my tears to your ears

Unheeding of your love song.

I have climbed the precipice of pride

And thought myself lifted,

Swum the ardent puddles of my self-deceit,

And imagined me a conqueror of oceans,

Closed my eyes and turned my head

To avoid the relentless demands

Of unbearable pity,

And blamed you for my pain.

I have failed to love you

You, you whose love first spun me into being

Who can balance the galaxies on a fingertip,

And wipe my smallest tear.

I have turned away

From the gratitude of stars

And the secret of forgiveness

Into a self-bound world,

Self on self bent backwards,

And the angels sang and I drowned it with cheap jokes.

I have kept my neighbour

At the safe and careful distance that propriety demands,

Leaving no blood on the carpets,

From the bloodless banal words

That displace our hearts.

And my name is Pharisee,

And my cheap gilt mirrors

Show a strangely leprous face

(It must be the light.)

God of the shining face,

Light which is life

Turn not your face

Lest I perish,

Utterly undone.

One life,

One death,

One Way,

And I give thanks.