You Still Can't Do It

Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Not me, obviously, since I don’t have clean hands and a pure heart. My hands are dry and cracked. And I keep trying to paint my nails, just so, without any little flaws. I carefully spread a shellac of nail varnish over them, and then sit real still, trying to keep from bumping and spoiling them. But then a child comes in wailing and smacks into me and my laboriously varnished nails are immediately spoiled.

As for my heart, it is full of cursing and trouble. It is completely directed not up the hill, but down into the torrent of trouble below. Occasionally, I gaze up at the hill and shuffle towards it, realizing how very tired and out of shape I am, how much energy it would take to make it to the top. And even if I did make it all the way up, I would roll back down immediately because I’m not welcome with my black soul.

Anyone who says they’ve been all the way up to the top of the hill, that they got there and it was awesome, is telling a gentle, if heartfelt, lie. No one can go up. No one’s hands are free from evil. No one’s heart or mind or soul is unaffected and unmarred by terribly ugly thoughts and plans. Not a single one. Well, one, yes, who would ascend at mid-day up the hill. And his clean hands would be split open, his pure heart broken, rent asunder. You can go up the hill now, if he goes with you.

Anne Carlson Kennedy holds an MDiv from Virginia Theological Seminary and is the author of Nailed It: 365 Sarcastic Devotions for Angry or Worn-Out People (Kalos Press). She blogs at patheos.com/preventinggrace. Excerpted from Nailed It © Anne Carlson Kennedy, 2016. Used by permission.