Myself and time, like birds,
or ships at sea, slip past each other,
with nothing that stays put;
but what I've done amiss does not skip by,
but stays: this is life's cruelest pain.
Nor can I tell what to pray for, to live on, or be done:
it's fearful either way. Come, think with me.
Through sins my life's become an aching mess. But if I die,
ai ai! there's no cure then for your old passions!
If this is what life appoints for you, its anguish is so great
that even when ended it holds no end of troubles,
but on both sides a precipice. What's there to say?
This then is what's best,
to look toward You alone, and Your kindheartedness.
--St. Gregory of Nazianzus, *On the Precariousness of Human Nature* On God and Man, p. 131
No comments:
Post a Comment