except you ravish me

         "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any one hear my voice, and open the door, I will come to her, and will dine with her, and she with me." Revelation 3:20.

Lord Jesus, I hear your knock but find that I cannot answer it. Is it for fear or for shame? Is it for pride or for weakness? I cannot tell. But I can hear, if even faintly, your knocking---your pierced hand rapping on the wood---and your voice coming through the door. Yet I am inside, unmoving, my legs as lead, my hands dead against my side. My heart itself seems to have grown cold and quiet, heavy and unbeating in my chest. I cannot answer you, I cannot rise, I cannot find the knob, I cannot open that door. I cannot let you in!

But Lord Jesus, how I want you to enter! I am voiceless and motionless, but how I long to dine with you, and you with me! So Jesus, behold me---dying if not dead. And Jesus, hear me---silent and pleading. And Jesus!---be polite no more, but batter my heart!

"Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you 

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

.: Holy Sonnet XIV, John Donne :.