A Pernicious Gravity

What force is this that holds me to my sin?

What hidden power draws me down?

It is invisible, malevolent and constant;

it doesn’t sleep.

We who are given to trudge this earth,

are mired, and filled by this same stuff,

which caught our fathers in its grip,

and caused the first one poisoned by its sweetness,

to fall from his lofty heights—

I am as likely to free myself from its grasp,

as I might bend over, unclasp my feet from the ground,

rise up from the earth, and float into the clouds—

Few things might humble me so deeply,

as the recognition of how ineffective I am,

at resisting my own pride—

It is a pernicious gravity.

But for the fact that you do not see me as I am,

but only imagine me to be as I should be;

because I have been taught and learned to wear,

false clothing which hides this shame—

Were it not for this, my humiliation would be fulfilled,

you would see and then, perhaps, I would have hope,

cast as well into the earth and made to eat dust,

no longer able to pretend, but exposed,

and finally, with no means to hide, no choice but to repent—

then, possibly, freed from this pernicious gravity.

And were a greater one than I to come,

with power greater than this body of sin,

with force and grace exceeding this body’s gravity—

then my soul and spirit could take flight,

by force of love this pride would be thrown off,

and I would be revealed in likeness to my maker—

as I was made to be;

no longer bound by a pernicious gravity.

 

~FS