LET US CHANGE

Something of a Lenten prayer from my forthcoming AGAINST CERTAINTY

LET US CHANGE

. . . in such a way that we may constantly 
evolve towards what is better, being transformed 
from glory to glory, and thus always improving
and ever becoming more perfect, and never
arriving at any limit of perfection.

—Saint Gregory of Nyssa

For now, I’d say the progress has been not so much 
glory to glory as glimpse to glimpse. Still, each such

glimpse has served to reassure my inglorious 
self that some transformation of my inner mess

might yet be underway, if hardly manifest, 
mostly off the radar of those with no access

to my head. Incrementally—as I have said—
the progress remains solely observed here in my head,

which for all appearances makes moot whatever
progress has been made. Perfection, the saint avers,

remains a likely goal, not ever to be reached,
which is one such glimpse—vertiginous—how each

incremental shift occurring in our persons 
must needs be noted as provisional, but one

late step along a path with no conclusion.