Remember me

Sometimes, when I find it hard to pray, when faith, hope, and love are threatening to dry up, I zero in on a handful of desperate pleas from a handful of desperate people who come across Jesus in the Gospels. A hated tax collector in the Temple, for example. Have mercy on me, a sinner. A thoroughly befuddled Peter after Jesus had spoken strange words about “eating his flesh” and “drinking his blood.” Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. A leper on a hillside. If you are willing, you can make me clean. A blind beggar on the road to Jericho. I want to see.

Sometimes I line up these statements, ruthlessly yanked out of context, and I examine them on the page. Sometimes I think that my whole prayer life could be encompassed by these naked entreaties. Sometimes I think that all the longing the world has ever known—the hopes and fears of all the years—could fit inside these spare, sparse words.

Have mercy on me, a sinner.