Page 170 - What They Did to the Kid

158 Jack Fritscher

Pitiable destruc tion. So small a chastise ment for my words. Unfair I
should find myself capable only of destroy ing myself. If You will to drive
me mad, Oh Lord, do it from without. Make Hank or Gunn or Karg
the villain. Them I can handle. Deliver me from within. Don’t turn
my very insides against me. Don’t let me destroy myself. Let me under-
stand. Make something full of grace happen to me. Make me start to
live. Don’t bring me to the steps of death. Don’t ever let me die without
being ordained a priest. You could...push me into the darkness...easily...
so easily...as once before when from outside, during the War, banging
the gurney into that blazing white surgical room, before I could talk,
pulling at me, they gassed me, to push me back to where there was no
word and no time. Oh God, why do I hold back? If my vanity can’t have
a perfect vocation, my modesty will settle for an imperfect one. Whatever
is Your will. Why can’t I admit for all time I have a vocation, exactly
as required, so finally I can grow into it? Why do I resist my superiors?
I am vain. I am prideful. I want to be a priest, Oh Lord. I’ll bend my
will. You know You called me; so help me answer Your call.

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