*Offered in remembrance of the courageous, faithful, and broken priest Thomas McKenzie, with many reminders of the resurrection. May his number increase.

I am in the mind of God from eternity and always on God’s mind.

My mind is in the gutter, fixed on what is passing away.

I am expertly knit by God in the womb of my mother for good works.

The tapestry my life weaves is chaotic and falling apart.

God delights in my existence.

I delight in anything but God.

God is always present, speaking, unveiling, seeking union with me.

I am ever absent, deaf, blind, consumed with detachment.

God bids me come and die.

I strive to stay alive by what brings death.

God desires that I share his imperishable way of existence.

I desire life on my own terms.

God becomes human to share his divine nature with me.

I try to escape my humanity, making deals with the devil for equality with God.

God knows me.

I am unknown to myself.

God wants to banish death from me like straw vanishes in flame.

I stuff myself with death like a scarecrow.

I am crucified with Christ.

I crucify.

I am accepted by God just as I am.

I reject and despise myself.

God loves me by laying down his life.

I love myself, putting my life before anyone.

God forgives me.

I withhold forgiveness.

God loves my enemies.

I wish my enemies harm.

God hands down heaven.

I raise hell.

God sees who I am in the end, in the perfection he in the beginning intends for me.

I see myself in a cracked mirror, broken and irreparable.

God clothes me with his pardon and makes me well.

I adorn myself with shame and depend on my addictions.

I am seated with God in the humanity of Jesus Christ, in the person who is what it means to be human and to be God.

I got up this morning thinking only of myself, only of what I want, mindless of my wife or children, or neighbor.

All of this is true at once, and I fool myself to deny any of it, but the divine affirmations defeat all of my denials in Jesus Christ and that is my whole trust.

I am what God makes of me not what I make of myself.