Collapsing Into 6: A Reflective Prayer

I couldn’t help but notice

that behind the flames and

under the cover of darkness,

your accent kept giving you away.

And behind your excuses,

which seemed ever-so calculated,

indeed, premeditated and

hardly fool-worthy, stood a man

burdened with an Enneagram 8

quickly collapsing into 6.

You kept him company on the road,

journeyed about, temporarily, at least,

leaving home and kin. You saddled

his donkeys, baked and broke his bread, and

argued about sitting at his right hand

in the kingdom come. Yet here you are,

the memories haunting about as if

ghosts on your shoulders. Thrice denial,

welcomed by cowardice, is offered up

in the name of self-protection.

You can’t take this back. You won’t

forget this. You will contemplate this

decision for as long as you live. It will

trouble your theology and shake

your spirit. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

An unsettled epistemology under fire,

behind flames, cloaked in darkness,

unable to come to grips with coherence.

You will rewind and replay this endlessly,

wishing you could have just

done it all so differently. But you didn’t.

He was right. He told you so.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.