“26 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 27 And Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ 28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” 29 Peter said to him, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” 30 And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” 31 But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same.” (Mark 14:26-31 ESV)

There is some tragic dynamic whereby recurring sins are not evaded successfully: we errantly take the plunge, we visit the bar of infamy, we say tough dealings to the call for a quiet time perhaps reading Scripture. To pray into this hour, is to pray a very delicate prayer walk, easily pounced upon by tragic Satanic incursions, easily due to frailty being rebooted ad nauseum, always moving, never getting anywhere. Indeed, our dreams can reveal this Determined Longing for the unkosher, the malaise, head-mixed-up effort for one violation of the Code, just one, devil-may-care as to if we are caught in the act.

Caught with the drink in hand (travel, O pilgrim, to the heavy salutes of the x-days sober fellow traveler!). Caught feeling as if lust is simply all good things. Caught in a gravity we cannot quite walk away from.

Indeed, habits formed in the trenches, these do reward us insofar as, hey, we never need have gotten so far away from the God-loving Basics. Basic chastities. Basic Habitual Goodness. Basic colorful New Expressions of an age-old Tradition. Because in some contexts, everything is somehow Kosher if enacted under the shared friendly roof of a Friend’s Home, of non-uptight friends, of things we suddenly put front and center as our deepest longings.

Go to prayer! Say this to the one with a needle and a little bag, though, and see that said Prayer is something never quite sturdy enough really to be a substitute to the dope, to the hit, to the Ahhh. But we intend determinedly that it be Sufficient, Substitute, Longing and Warm Embrace of Home. Our prayer is our Home. Our prayer is our immediate realization: God cares not that we entered the den of skin and scandal, nor that we took the drag of the weed, nor that we drank the drink: God is already making sure we never obsess, and are already Forgiven, because He sees a deeper Meaning to our lives, a deeper Blessedness, a need for a simpler kind of Forgiveness: and He mints, makes, forms Soldiers who are immune, immune to their falling away (still held in the arms of the Spirit), immune to their wild cruise-control indulgences (really, those were put to rest alongside evening’s Compline), immune to self-hatred, impossibilities, depth too deep Sins (all just the first tremors of Salvation History, starting as it does with our Need and our Brokenness).

Hate not, keep privy the confessions, but hate not the one thus Tempted. Hate not the Fact, God loves the reformed believer as much as the lifelong saint, but He is particular to Remind: some have indulged courses of action that are not easily forgotten or swept away. Our habitual, our broken sense of Wholeness, our melancholy scattering and sham Attack of the integrity of our Being, these things we are as Prodigals, to meditate upon.