Paradox

     The trees screamed at me from across the road. The wind soared high up, so that hardly a breath swept over my face. The brown leaves were crashing and swaying like dull bells. I wanted to be up in the clouds, but I feared them. I crossed the road and climbed the ridge, high up with the wind and the trees, with these thoughts in my head:
     This night is a paradox that I have to hold in my hands. God is so close, the divine is breathing on my neck with the wind. I am thinking of how we humanity have twisted humanity. I am thinking, "man, hold to untwisted humanity, for it is the only reception of your salvation."
     I am overwhelmed with my sin. I can no longer bear my twisted soul. Should He not carry me away to the cold clouds with the dead leaves? And leave my empty body to be found by next year's campfire. I see a light, a strength to which I can cling. I am a woman, created by God, human. I have only this excuse, I am imperfect, to offer up as a basket to receive the salvation that floats down, clothed in grace. There is no other reason for this mercy but that I need it, and He wants to give it. I hold in my hands the poorest and best excuse ever known. My deep inadequacy is all that holds Him to His promise of grace.
     I will praise His name, for I am not an angel perfect, or a goddess that cannot fail. I am the nature of failure, and none could need Him more than I. So I, woman, will cling to my humanity with all that I have, and be made straight by His coming.
     This windy night named Hector has perhaps opened a view of the pleasure and thought of God at the creation of man. This paradox is of needing because of it and having fulfillment only because of need. I cry with Paul that we do not sin that grace may more abound, but we rejoice at the abounding of the precious grace. As an unfailing goddess, how could I know my Lord until I needed Him more than breath and warmth? The wind plucked at me, and I felt wide and narrow, strong and weak. Strong because His grace is stronger than the bent in my soul. He comes to straighten, not to break.
     I would rather be straightened than left with riches. I would rather be straightened than live as I am. I would rather be straightened than breathe the too fast air on the ridge. God, straighten me. I would not be perfect unless you made me so.
     These thoughts are still in my head many days later. Other thoughts join them, of desire and fulfillment, and how something can seem utterly important and unimportant at once. Paradoxes that pull my mind through stuffy clouds and fearsome forests. But I know the Divine Perfection that walks with me, and I am not afraid of the paradoxes.