March 24
God’s Mercies Redeem Our Guilty Mornings
by Jen Wilkin
Our senses are powerful memory holders. The smell of mothballs transports me to my grandparents’ attic where I played dress-up. The taste of pound cake transports me to my mother’s kitchen where I licked batter from a wooden spoon. Sounds, too, attach themselves to memories. From childhood, an old screen door banging shut is the sound of homecoming to me.
I imagine what kind of memory the rooster’s crow evoked for Peter. Every dawn after that first terrible morning of betrayal, the proclamation of his bitter guilt would have rung afresh in his ears. Carried in the crowing would have been the memory of his colossal failure. By nighttime perhaps he would have pushed down the nausea enough to get some sleep. That feathered fiend would at last rest his infernal lungs.
And there was evening, and there was morning. Cock-a-doodle-doo. Guilt for breakfast, again.
