Glorious Infirmities - Peter vs Paul Part 3

---------/ Glorious Infirmities - Peter vs Paul Part 3

When I fall in love you say I do so too ardently
when I express my love, you say its done too stridently
and yet you also deem my hatred for transgression and double dealing
for conniving Jews intent on violating whats sacrosanct
too cruel
while assessing my writing as excessively blunt
whether I succeed or fail I appease none
whether in my elation or my disconsolation – forever you derive error
everything is too exaggerated, exorbitant, intemperate for you
and it hurts
more than my abundant labors, stripes above measure, frequent imprisonments,
more than all the death Ive seen…
my heart is a dichotomy between love and hate
warring inside
and all my life I have tried to synthesize these emotions
and control them
the strength of my love fuels the vitriol of my hate
the zeal for truth incites the militancy against all falsity
and for all the crimes Ive committed
I boast in my infirmities
(in forty stripes minus one
in my beatings with rods, bruises from hurled stone,
shipwrecks on tempestuous waters, dangers inherent
from prolonged exposure and starvation in the wilderness
and horrid duplicity and heartbreak
dealt by false brethren in whom I invested all my trust)
hoping they make atonement and restitution for all the harm I caused
and for all the injustice by my freewheeling passion
please forgive me I only did what I thought was right
Im sorry I was wrong
Your indignation is Aretas the king decreeing my death
but may your mercy be kin to people I slaughtered
placing me in a basket
letting me down through a window
a flawed man driven to extremes


(so no, I'm not like you)



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(2 Corinthians 11:22-33) Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation? If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. In Damascus the governor, under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me; but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.