Barneyisfat

The Epic Fail and “Marrow” by Ani Difranco

To have sinned so strongly against my own moral conscience hurts so deeply. To have realized the painful disgrace long before the actual sin took place and to have done it anyways offends even me. I wonder how God puts up with this sinful heart. This heart that would make a conscious choice to abandon everything it believes and follow the flesh.

“The answer came like a shot in the back
While you were running from your lesson
Which might explain why years later all you could remember was the terror of the question.
Plus, you weren't listening
You were stockpiling canned goods
making a bomb shelter of our basement.
And I can't believe you let the moral go by while you were soaking in the product placement.
And where was your conscience?
Where was your consciousness?
And where did you put all those letters that you wrote to yourself but could not address?”

Paul addresses sin. He talks about the flesh. He says that he knows what he does is wrong but that he does it anyway. And, we read these verses in church, and we gloss over the reality of his sin. Because I read those verses often and I find no redemption in them. I see the promise of redemption – but I get something so different than those around me when we read those passages. Surely those around me resonate with his cry of pain and inadequacy. Surely others understand Paul’s surrender to his flesh – others see their own copouts in his words.

“There's a smorgasbord of unspoken poisons
The whole childhood of potions that are all bottled up
And so one by one I am dusting off labels
I am uncorking bottles and filling up cups.
So go ahead and have a taste of your own medicine
and I'll have a taste of mine
But first let's toast to the lists that we hold in our fists of the things
That we promised to do differently next time.”

And my soul fails to magnify the Lord. We learned about Mary’s hymn of praise in church on Sunday. Her response to the unusual news was “my soul magnifies the Lord.” We have her hymn. Why don’t we sing the hymn of despondency that David wrote after the Bathsheba incident. Although, I guess I should be glad that David’s infidelity made it into the narrative at all. My soul, oh, my soul fails to magnify the Lord.

“Cause the answer came like a shot in the back
While you were running from your lesson
which might explain why years later all you could remember was the terror of the question.
Cause I'm not listening to you anymore.
My head is too sore and my heart's perforated
And I am mired in the marrow of my "well ain't that funny?" bone
Learning how to be alone and devastated.“

I feel that my willpower is too weak and my understanding of grace too small to live out the faith I so deeply love. I feel that I don’t even know myself – or that I know myself too well and don’t want to admit it.

“and Where was my conscience?
Where was my consciousness?
And what do I do with all these letters that I wrote to myself but can not address?”