A Prostitute's Pardon

Luke 7:37-39
When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.----------------------------------------[The thoughts of a doleful prostitute...seeking redemption]



I cry because I know when I see you
who I ought to be
and all the things I didn't finish
that should have been
and I close my eyes and trace the footsteps
the paths trodden, sandals torn...
and remember the places I was forbidden to enter
That I entered anyway and people I should have shunned
and counsel I should have spurned
I defiantly entertained...
because I hated myself so much that I forced myself to love others
and spawned cynicism
deep within

You are the little girl hidden inside me
You are the innocence I gambled away on
my wages of sorrow

So many years
I tried to trust the streets and called
on the town square, the abstruse alleys to be my father
...wine to be my husband...
its attendant cold lifeless hands embracing me at night
while I took solace in the fact that my heart
was becoming more and more callous
(I didn’t want to feel any more pain)
so much that I prayed for my breasts to become stone too
that I would drop dead the next time money passed through my hands
because of my body defiled
the resentment that causes me to wake from horrid nightmares
constantly
is the only thing that keeps me alive

I bow down at your feet
grabbing your ankles
careful not to get them too wet with my sobbing
grabbing with the force of the last shred of dignity I own
(pouring perfume with the last penny I own)
I never meant to run away from you, Lord
I meant to finish what I started when I was young
(honestly)


[I never meant to turn my back on the synagogue]




When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner."