David, aware now of his dead son

John Donne:

Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthral me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

II Samuel 12:20

Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped.

My soul is quiet before you, the quietness of an honest mourning. There is a peacefulness in my heart, the peace of an assured forgiveness, the peace of rest in God. I stand before him here in the temple, worshipping, a man made known to himself, a man with new light, but the light shines from the one who also looks, an examination from one who already knows what he examines. I am here, silent in the humility of this new depth to my heart, but at peace for the one who exposed it knew it already when he chose me that day long ago, when Samuel poured the oil over my head and his Spirit filled me. He is still mine, for he owns me, though his owning is a hard thing.

O heart, examine and know yourself! This new placidity is for your subjugation, that rebellious center revealed, brought forth as the hand of God lifted itself off me for a moment, and the dark ways were shown.

There were days in my youth when God made every moment alive, when as I tended the flocks his presence brought a joy I could touch and feel, a transporting joy that shattered the youthful hardness of my heart, that old rebel, the betrayer was captured by God, and I sang and made music to the Lord! My singing was a new song, a song with words but beyond words, or rather, the words invested with a power that revealed the deeper truths, the actualities. Yes, I sang, my heart aflame with love for him, a sincere love, an exalting love, and he was my all. What foundations did you lay in me as I tarried in the fields, O wise God? What pathways did you clear to your heart as I sang and worshiped? The very nearness of you was like a stamp on my soul, or rather, like the glory of upon the face of Moses, a shining that faded only slowly, renewed as it was day-by-day in my approaches to him.

Then, O sustainer, O refuge, O shield, the days of my fleeing, when sometimes I seemed abandoned by God, when I cried out like a spurned lover, when denied you were denied me and my heart beat with love for you, for the distance made my memories stronger, increasing my desire like salt to a thirsty man. In your denial, O Lord, you were strangely present, for there was no forgetfulness in those days. No, I daily cried to you, and the moments in which you came were like lamps in the night, like the streams of the Negev, sharpening my thirst, increasing it, satisfying it. O my heart still beat for you, you drawer of men, you fierce one, for it was shown another part of itself in those days. You were joy, and you were desire.

O Lord, then, then, how great was my joy in the victories you gave! You did not withhold the request of my lips, but gave me victory, glory, a crown of pure gold, a throne, a promise, the ark of your presence, the sword, all these things from your hand came to your anointed one! Then surpassing them all, the glory of the great promise, my son to be my Lord, him to rule forever, I under him unlike the pattern of sons and fathers, this a mystery, but glorious in its mysteriousness, set on top of all the promises our people possess, it gave me that great psalm, the inspiration of your Spirit moving my tongue as it burst forth from me, that he would be the priest-king, the great one, the eternal one, like Melchizedek!

I sat in my palace that day, having come from the house of God, the reflected glory of the Lord still full upon my soul, a joy surpassing, seemingly unceasing, joy and desire met in the fullness of his presence, promises, mercy, it was all mine!

Then, it faded.

What darkness came upon me? What obscured him from me? It was not like his withdrawals, of which I was familiar, that universal experience of his people when he sharpens their desire through an awareness of his value. This was...different, its motions hidden from me, like when the over-sated stomach loses the tang of food, eating to eat or drinking to drink. This was not a reversal of the pathways of my affections, but a slow ebbing of them, their disappearance, even as in my manner and conduct I retained a seeming normalcy. My worship continued, my life went by as usual, my friends were my friends, I ate, I drank, I slept. But something was missing.

O God, I should have cried out to you then, for though you did not seem distant you were further away than you had ever been in former days! O God, my wanting of you had never vanished, and in my pride I never imagined that it could, I never knew that what had always been consistent was constantly maintained in me by you! O God, I perhaps wanted to want, sometimes frustrated by my lack of desire, but I thought that this was the normal way of our interaction, a gradual comfort once victory was claimed, in reality a base complacency, a forgetting, a contra-choosing! O mourn, heart, mourn the sin in you!

O yes, this was sin. This was the wickedness of my heart, that which had lurked all the days of my life, from the joys of my experiences, to the longings of his absences, to the exultations of my victories, always my heart was wicked, crafty, watching in wait like a lion under cover, watching in secret to catch his victim, and drag him away in his net. Undead sin, left alive by the unwatchful heart, the assuming heart, the foolish man who considered his donated desire his own, though its true owner could retract it as he would.

Time passed. The spring came and I stayed home from the battles, leaving Joab to fight them in my stead. I, who had always fought the enemies of God with the zeal of one jealous for his glory, who had charged up the hill against the giant, instead I sat on the roof of my palaces, satiated by what lawful desires I was afforded. I looked upon her. I desired her. I took her.

There is more in the recalling than that simple recitation of facts, for much business occurred in my heart as the decision was being made. It was a turmoil, my heart both rebelling and recoiling from it, but my desire hung heavy around me like a mist, and made all things confusing. To dispel would have taken a mere moment, shining into it the light of his law, the law about which I once wrote, "The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes." But there was no desire to dispel them, for I hid in them, and though I see that God held me even as he loosed me, it was I who brought the mist in, it was I whose watchlessness left open the gates of my heart, who staggered towards the pit in my path with an empty mindlessness, overcoming my objections not with answers but with a suppression, an internal shouting down that simply led me to sin willfully, I who once said "Keep your servant also from willful sins, may they not rule over me."

Willful sins rule over us, they are our masters, for in our choosing we are slaves, slaves. There is no freedom in rebellion, all darkness blinds, and the flesh once given room will take all. One sin led to another. I, David, I am now an adulterer, a murderer, a liar, and a thief. This I was in my heart, now I am that to all, having taken, I can never give back. But above all of it there was an empty buzz, a forgetfulness, a sunkenness. There I was, in the miry pit, as I had long cried out from. But now I was poured out like mud, lifeless, existing merely, worshiping in the same outward way, but a hidden man. I was dead in my desire, but I didn't know it.

O Lord, what mercy you showed me! For there I would have continued, my desire for all time subsumed by what can be seen and touched, my former joy a forgotten thing, dim with the memories of my past, a man under the shroud, helpless in his emptiness. What we are unaware of we cannot fight, and this shows the grace that God gifts to us far beyond what we can imagine in our weakness, this grace of seeing and fighting, the grace of calling and crying, the grace of knowing our distance from him, knowing even the offense we have done. For though I knew my sin, it was the half-knowing that stayed in my reason, the propositional fact of it admitted and squirmed under, but it did not make me gasp.

Then, rushing in, it came, the words of Nathan like a hammer, breaking, destroying, throwing down, and suddenly there was nothing but my sin before God, that waking that comes, like a man half-asleep who snaps into a fuller consciousness from the shock of a loud voice. It was like light, but not the gentle light of a lamp, no, the searing, merciless light of the summer noon. I had known it, but now it was before God, his awareness of it so terrible that I could only admit it, I could say nothing else, for there was nothing else to say. This was a glimpse of all men before God, for surely all will be one day exposed, they are exposed now, it only rests to bring it into their present awareness, and to brought in it now, in this life, not to be destroyed but to be given mercy? O Lord, this is fodder for the rest of my days, for here is a new sight, a new understanding, given when I thought all was understood, all known, all experienced. No, David! There are new depths to be seen, new depths of mercy and grace, each exposure magnifying it!

So now I sit in the temple, worshiping. I will never gain back what my soul has lost in these sins. This is real loss, a real mourning that flows naturally from my deeds. All men face such reckonings, and it is a principal part of the joy of wisdom that such things are avoided. So my son is dead, and though I will see him one day, he will not come back to me. This is a sadness, and my heart mourns it.

What do I do now, Lord? I have learned of myself. I have seen secret things that shock me, a heart once so strong for God, now revealed as impure, selfish, violent. It was always so, but now I see it. O Lord, there is a terrible fear, a trembling fear, that you will one day remove the hedge around me again, and I will fall. O Lord, preserve me!

O God, the humble heart is aware of its weaknesses. The humble heart sees as grace every holy action, every holy desire. The humble heart claims nothing for itself, but returns all to you. The humble heart is dependent in everything, O maker, everything! Lord, if you turn a deaf ear to me, I will be overcome!

O Lord, you are the one who makes his dwelling among the humble. Then, if my heart is humble, you will always dwell with me. You who makes the heart humble, make mine so! For in the worship, I am again flooded with the sense of your presence, your goodness, your grace, the assured faithfulness of your covenant, that you preserved me here, bound me up in your word and saved me, though all of it is yours! O God, I see my heart in the light of your examination, I see the terrible weakness of it, and Lord, I hate it, I hate this flesh, this sin, these dangers, this sojourn is already too long, and dangers crowd around me. O God, preserve me, this poor man, take me as you have always done, restoring the joys of my salvation, granting me also a willing spirit that will sustain me til the end.

And now, let me teach transgressors your ways! O Lord, my heart though humble now, is a heart yet and I doubt it. Men of Israel, do the same! You are never beyond any sin, any falling, even the ones that in your pride you would scoff at. The weakness is in you, it is your inheritance, and unless God sustains you, you will fall. So come before him, worship and plead with him, roll your whole soul upon him, and he will carry you. His grace will come and you will be at peace.

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Many psalms are referenced.
The story is 2 Samuel 11-12