"With Mercy For The Greedy"

Today, Sibille (who happens to be in my top five circle of friends) did a post regarding a quote on BBC radio. This is what the priest had to say, "If God had meant for all people to be Christians he would have made them all Christians, if he had meant us all to be Muslims he would have made us all Muslims. But he didn't. He had the power to, but didn't. You have to wonder why." Love it.

Sibille, also inquired where my journal title originated. In case anyone else has wondered the same, it comes from this:

WITH MERCY FOR THE GREEDY
by Anne Sexton

For my friend, Ruth, who urges me to make an appointment for the Sacrament of Confession


Concerning your letter in which you ask
me to call a priest and in which you ask
me to wear The Cross that you enclose;
your own cross,
your dog-bitten cross,
no larger than a thumb,
small and wooden, no thorns, this rose—

I pray to its shadow,
that gray place
where it lies on your letter ... deep, deep.
I detest my sins and I try to believe
in The Cross. I touch its tender hips, its dark jawed face,
its solid neck, its brown sleep.

True. There is
a beautiful Jesus.
He is frozen to his bones like a chunk of beef.
How desperately he wanted to pull his arms in!
How desperately I touch his vertical and horizontal axes!
But I can’t. Need is not quite belief.

All morning long
I have worn
your cross, hung with package string around my throat.
It tapped me lightly as a child’s heart might,
tapping secondhand, softly waiting to be born.
Ruth, I cherish the letter you wrote.

My friend, my friend, I was born
doing reference work in sin, and born
confessing it. This is what poems are:
with mercy
for the greedy,
they are the tongue’s wrangle,
the world's pottage, the rat's star.