Wrestling Salvation

A Poem

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

Romans 7:15-25 (ESV)

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Wrestling Salvation

Do e’re your thoughts betray you,
    as often as mine do?
Contemplations of Life’s beauties,
    theologies and philosophies,
interposed -
    by the redeeming soliloquies
with which my Liturgies
are littered.

I could time clocks to their rhythms,
    my beating heart ridden,
breath, another moment broken,
   silently spoken, painful tokens,
coerced -
    forced upon internal reflections,
cacophonous ocean,
sequestered.

Their weight, relentless, pressing,
    holding doors of blessing,
remain they thorns of consciousness,
    avarice continued, omnibus,
revising - 
    together, in voices sonorous,
retelling, ominous,
remembered.

Leave out these accusations,
    cogitative patience,
renewing such needful unity,
    grow increased, free, so beautifully,
eternal -
    break upon these shores with liturgies,
wrestling salvation, be
delivered.

Thanks for reading!