Oh, to be Pope

Alexander Pope told me, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” Boy am I human. And so not divine.

I see myself as a series of flaws, endlessly wondering why I’ve made the choices I’ve made, where they’ve taken me, and why I have no self-control. I am “err.” Air. There is air between my ears. Matthew actually jokes that if he shone a flashlight against one ear he’d see the light on the other side. It’s too true, striking a blow to my stomach in its absoluteness. Err = Air. I am homonyms.

To be Pope, Catholic Pope, my fallibility would be infallible. Beauty in divine forgiveness. “Catholic” means universal, and aren’t we each Popes of our own universe? Am I Pope of my own universe and divine even in my fallibility? Lord, hear my prayer.

But to be Alexander Pope, author of all our adages, that would be divine. To control language to give ultimate truth in one sentence of utter pith, divinity. Pope, granted ultimate forgiveness of err to the manifold universes not our own through literary penance.

But I am just Christine. A culpable Pope of my own strange universe, lacking the grace of divine. I cannot forgive myself. My excuses are hollow even in my own ears, so lacking in meaning that I don’t even offer them to Matthew. When he asks why, I think of the millions of reasons why and reductively whine “beeecuuuz….”

Wabi-sabi, I am beautiful in my universe despite my imperfection. I am divine in my own air.