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Guilty Thoughts

I

Through idle thoughts alone if no-one knows,
We cannot hurt someone who never will
Find out. No victim: none could ever spill
The beans. Can we do any harm to those
Among our foes we would not if we chose?
Then who so harsh to charge us? Who would fill
Our hearts with guilt for actions that we still
Would not commit against those we oppose?

And is it not unfair to all of us
To think an evil thing is to have thus
Already in our hearts the evil wrought
Though it be no more than a passing thought?
If dire the deed, do we deserve damnation
Though we have laudably defied temptation?

.

II

How do we intercept our evil dreams
Before those evil dreams become a sin?
Our enemies, how can we simply grin
And bear the flood of calumny that seems
Designed to drown us in its turgid streams
Of rank abuse; to take blows on the chin,
To bear the insults and the fearful din
Of hatred issued forth in loudest screams?

How do we treat our earnest foes? We bring
The olive branch of peace nor yet condemn
Them; turn the other cheek, no easy thing.
The hardest task of all to pray for them.
We all know what we really ought to do.
Will he forgive an errant thought or two?

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III

Partaking in our frail humanity
We know His counsel of perfection sought
And found and followed is just as it ought
To be, Whose ideal world we’d all agree
Contains no fear and no disharmony.
But weakness manifested in a thought?
Our place in Paradise is dearly bought
If we must ever be as mild as He

In thought and action. And yet even Christ
Would drive the traders from His Father’s house,
To money-lenders, vendors sacrificed.
Love for His Father meant no timid mouse
Was He, for Christ was vexed and next would show
His love for Him in blows bestowed below.

.

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Peter Hartley is a retired painting restorer. He was born in Liverpool and lives in Manchester, UK.

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37 Responses

  2. C.B. Anderson

    Scripture teaches that it is possible to sin in the heart, so be careful what you think. Rudolf Steiner, as well, has said, “A thought is a deed.”

    Reply
    • Peter Hartley

      CB – yes indeed it is, and the hardest thing it is to know and recognise it as such, to banish thoughts that come to mind unbidden before they take root, or have we, before we reach this point, already sinned?

      Reply
      • Mike Bryant

        Peter, these poems have had me thinking a bit too much. My brain isn’t used to that! Anyway, I have a feeling that if God forgives sin, He can forgive both flavors. In fact, I’m counting on it.

      • C.B. Anderson

        That sounds like original sin, Peter, for which it is hard to hold oneself responsible

  3. Peter Hartley

    Mike – If your head hurts, just remember most of the questions I ask in my poetry seem to be either rhetorical or they are impossible to answer. The exact point at which an unbidden thought becomes a sin I think must belong to the second category, so don’t expend too much thought on it. Whatever is the answer, like you, I hope He can forgive thought crimes as well as sins of commission and omission and again, like you, I’m banking on it too. Many thanks for your comment.

    Reply
  4. James A. Tweedie

    Peter, Well-framed thoughts that prompt a response. Forgive me for quoting a short story. It involves a young would-be train robber with second thoughts in conversation with a Pastor/passenger in the 1880’s.

    “It’s like this,” he said. “What if someone was going to do something bad . . . and they planned to do it and they were drunk but they agreed to do it and were willing to do it . . .”

    “But,” I cut in, “they didn’t do it? Is that it?”

    The boy nodded and stared at me as if his life depended on my answer.

    “Well,” I replied, after chewing on the question for a bit. “Jesus said that thinking about doing a bad thing was just as much a sin as actually doing it.”

    As I spoke, the boy’s head sagged and his eyes drifted off into another blank stare.

    “But,” I quickly added, “I don’t think that Jesus meant that there wasn’t a difference between the two. Both are sins, but doing the bad thing is always a more serious sin than not doing it.”

    The boy’s head lifted a bit and his eyes locked back on mine.

    “The Bible says that?” he asked as if hope had been rekindled somewhere deep in his soul.

    “Not straight out,” I said, “but it makes sense to think of it that way. After all, doing the deed causes harm that must be atoned. But the thought alone, if one repents of it, can be forgiven.”

    “But that’s the Bible, right? What about the law? God might not hang me but a judge or a mob might do it . . . right?”

    Reply
      • Peter Hartley

        Mike – Yes, I thought so too, and I hope He can find a funny side somewhere to my own self-confessed, albeit very rare murderous proclivities.

      • Mike Bryant

        Peter – Maybe we have a timeless sense of humour. Could it be because we were created in His image?

    • Peter Hartley

      James – do you know I was very much hoping to hear the view of a certain pastor emeritus on this thorny problem but I certainly was not expecting to have a good laugh too. Thank you for that. But it IS a serious question. “To think an evil thing is to have already committed it in our hearts” implies an equivalence between the two. Several times in my life, as a young man I have thought I should like to kill someone. Without wishing to incriminate myself too inextricably, on each occasion it has been on account of my treatment at the hands of an overgrown adolescent bully. But merely thinking the thought… how serious does the thinking have to be in order for it to be precisely equal in gravity to the physical act of murder? Surely it is only a very tiny proportion of those who think murderous thoughts who will actually carry them into effect. The thinking, without making the slightest physical movement or arrangement towards carrying out the evil action, is surely the safety valve that helps, more often than not, to prevent its occurrence? These thoughts come into the mind (or is it only MYmind?) unbidden. How can that be my fault or yours?

      Reply
      • Peter Hartley

        Mike – that little romp, as you so aptly describe it, is ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS and reminds me very much of those old Bob Newhart soliloquies. Also, and I have to be perfectly honest here, I find the whole monologue enormously useful and instructive, and have been taking reams of copious notes.

      • Mike Bryant

        Peter-perhaps we should combine our notes… or at least our lists, in the interests of planet earth.

      • Mike Bryant

        Also, Peter, so funny that you should mention Newhart, one of my favourite comedians of all time.

      • C.B. Anderson

        Some persons deserve to die, I’m sure, but it’s not for us to decide. Harboring such thoughts is a sin against one’s own (immortal) self, I might say, and it’s strange that such thoughts lead us into temptation, which might be why we ask Our Father not to lead us there, lest we trespass against another soul under God’s supervision.

    • Peter Hartley

      James – not so funny now, having read the whole story, to realise that I believe it may well be a true one. It certainly answers the question for me unequivocally as to whether thinking evil is just as bad as committing it. No it is not.

      Reply
      • Peter Hartley

        Mike, perhaps we should compare lists some time and take it from there.

      • James A. Tweedie

        Peter, Thank you for taking a second look at my story/comment which, in addition to being true to human nature and historical setting, recounts a serious fictionalized event—a story that I believe speaks directly to several of the questions raised in your masterful sonnet-trio.

      • Peter Hartley

        James – Thank you for indulging me in my bovine misinterpretation of your little anecdote at a first reading. It really does bear the stamp of truth about it, with its skilful embellishments, and with such verisimilitude that even now I’m not sure whether it happened or not. But, as I wrote above, it undoubtedly gives an unequivocal answer, in an elaborate parable, but without any sermonising, to what I believed, in my naïveté, to be an awkward question.

  5. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Peter, your poetry meets theology meets philosophy trio of sonnets is a mind twisting, linguistic delight that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting my head around while nourishing my heart with the art I adore. The laws of our land today have changed beyond all recognition and would readily punish for a thought crime… however, I believe God searches the very core of our hearts for who we are and what we stand for… the mind can be twisted by sin… the heart remains constant. At least, that’s my take on matters.

    The way you craft your poems is an inspiration. I love the conversational feel and the thought-provoking subject matter. You never fail to impress me with your range. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Peter Hartley

      Susan – The way that you have interpreted for me your own views on divine justice and how it is tempered by compassion and by understanding, and how you believe each person is judged by God on the basis of the whole life’s being and on the nature of the heart’s core (as sharply distinct from the mind in being deeper within us and thus less prone to bad influence) over that whole lifetime (and not simply by counting and weighing in the balance the sum of discrete isolated thoughts and actions good and bad) I find truly inspirational. Also a bit comforting. Thank you enormously for that.

      Reply
      • Susan Jarvis Bryant

        Peter, I believe the heart and the mind are distinct… the mind weighs every possibility… the heart just is and also acts as our conscience, if we have one. But, because we are sinful by nature, lust, jealousy, anger, fear etc. play a part in the unfathomable. Look at King David. He was a lustful murderer. But God saw in his heart something most of us cannot comprehend. Occam’s Razor springs to mind… that’s why I like my simple view. Only God knows the broader one. Only God knows our hearts. I believe you have a beautiful one… and sometimes things we can’t forgive ourselves or others, God will. Only God knows. Peter, I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised.

      • Mike Bryant

        I believe that I read somewhere that the wages of sin is death. So, from this simple plumber’s simple point of view, it only makes sense that, when you die, you’re all paid up… my two cents. With that and about five bucks you can buy a cup of joe.

      • Peter Hartley

        Susan – Your comment reappeared on my iPad but I still haven’t seen it on my laptop. It should be just above the present comment somewhere. Thank you very belatedly for your last, and it is interesting to note that you see the heart and the mind (and the soul?) as distinct entities where I simplify them even more down to one. It is a nice distinction that you make, and I hope I am not putting words in your mouth that shouldn’t be and never were there: that you believe the mind is staid and circumspect and weighs things up before making informed judgments, whereas the heart is the impulsive part of us but also the part that keeps us in check and reminds us that this course of action or that is morally right or wrong. To be told, on the basis of my poetry, that I have a beautiful heart is so kind and so open, so ingenuous and unexpected a statement that I am rendered speechless, especially when it emanates from somebody who has attained your Parnassian heights. I can only say, though, from my bathypelagic depths, how fortunate you are that you do not know me!

  6. Jeff Eardley

    Peter, like Mike, my brain has been taxed with these three works of genius. On a day when a group of teenagers have ended the life of a lovely twelve year old girl in your home town, I wonder what was in their minds. This is another level of poetry to your usual highly entertaining work and I will re-visit tomorrow when the power is back on, and hopefully, the balls on the brass monkey will be re-attached.

    Reply
    • Mike Bryant

      Jeff… now you have to write a poem about monkeys that have brass balls… or is it vice versa?

      Reply
      • Jeff Eardley

        I once had a monkey of brass
        Out there in the yard on the grass
        Where I had a nice gloat
        When I found a banknote
        That had slipped down the crack of his ass.

    • Peter Hartley

      Jeff, my feeble brain wasn’t too greatly taxed by the writing thereof because, as I wrote a bit higher up this column most of my serious poems consist mainly of rhetorical, unanswerable or, to add a third, just plain stupid questions. I do hope the brass monkeys don’t shed any more of their inguinal appurtenances. Thank you for your enormously kind, if undeserved, comment on my works of genius.

      Reply
    • Peter Hartley

      Jeff – this comment is in the wrong place. I haven’t heard about the murder in Liverpool, and I didn’t know about the power cut, unless this a metaphorical reference to a malfunction of the brain, but it has just started snowing here so I don’t think it is time yet for the re-attachment of the simian sphericals.

      Reply
  7. David Watt

    Peter, these three poems place you firmly in the category of ‘thinking man/woman’s poet. This is a case where the questions are equally, if not more important, than the answers.

    Reply
    • Peter Hartley

      David – I take that as a great compliment, as indeed did the famous broadcaster Joan Bakewell on being referred to by Frank Muir as “the thinking man’s crumpet.” This thinking man’s poet, though, doesn’t have any answers. Thank you very much for the comment.

      Reply
  8. Margaret Coats

    Peter, I enjoyed the group of three thoughtful sonnets, and although I am here late, I must give you the very clearcut answer from Chaucer’s Parson. You may recall that in the unfinished Canterbury Tales, the Parson (a simple but outspoken country priest) is last to speak. As well, his long sermon is never assigned by English teachers, and so we miss his wisdom.

    In response to your questions, the Parson said that an evil thought is a mere temptation, and no guilt of any kind attaches to temptations. They are always arising from the world, the flesh, and the devil, and no one can avoid them.

    Guilt comes when someone entertains a temptation (taking pleasure in it, deliberately recalling it, and thinking about it with gusto). This kind of guilt, the Parson specifies, is venial (it is a less important kind of sin). The sin of yielding to a temptation becomes mortal when a person makes up his mind to do the sin if he should have the opportunity. This, the Parson points out, is where the sinner turns away from God and despises God, even if he never commits the sin. He reminds his listeners that sin is fundamentally an offense against the good God who has called us into existence and given us everything we have. And God knows when we decide on committing a sin, so we cannot ever say that we have hidden the sin from the Person most concerned.

    The Parson acknowledges that it is worse to actually murder someone than to make up one’s mind to commit murder. But his whole point is that a mortal sin of thought alone, in which we lose God’s grace and become His enemy, is possible. We can go to Hell for it, but it remains easier to repent if the act of murder is not done. Still, we must recall that everything in our minds is known to God–and that sin is above all an offense against God.

    I’m glad you brought up the ideal of Jesus, advising us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, in the last sonnet. Without this, it might seem as if unknown thoughts, and temptations ultimately resisted, do not make any difference. But from the Creator who gave us the capacity to think, they do, and He calls us to the perfection of which Jesus is the model.

    Reply
    • Peter Hartley

      Margaret – Thank you so much for giving me a fourteenth century answer to my very genuine question born of very genuine puzzlement at what appeared to me to be a gross injustice given biblical assent. Had I known where to look, it could have saved me the trouble of writing these three poems and saved SCP members the trouble of reading them. I have read the whole of the Canterbury Tales (though only the Prologue and Nun’s Priest’s tale in Middle English). I have Neville Coghill’s admirable translation and at my mother’s house, not far away she still has a nineteenth century copy of Tyrwhitt’s famous text. The answer, in the shape of your Parson’s Tale, was almost literally, at the end of my nose. There are said to be two kinds of knowledge, knowing things and knowing where to find out about things, and you certainly have both kinds in huge bucketloads. I am very relieved to hear from you at second hand that an evil thought merely constitutes a temptation, to which no culpability attaches, and only becomes a venial sin by persistently dwelling upon the act (of lust, theft, murder etc) and the venial sin only through commission of the act or a firm intention to do so becomes mortal. That explanation will do for me because it does not exhort us to do the impossible. By the way this iPad changed my “venial sin” to “genial sin.” I wonder what the wages of genial sin is? That would make for a riveting sermon. Thank you once again, Margaret, for your enlightening words.

      Reply
  9. Tamara Beryl Latham

    Peter, you’ve incorporated such wisdom in your guilt trip, sonnet style. Your words force one to contemplate his or her actions. 🙂

    One thing Jesus emphasized, when confronted with Simon Peter having
    denied Him three times, was forgiveness. At the end, when Jesus was resurrected, He stated to Peter: “Peter, do you love me? Feed my lambs.” And a second time, “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.” And a third time, “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

    Jesus giving Peter these three conditions to contemplate was tantamount to Him neutralizing the guilty or sinful act that was weighing heavy on Peter’s heart and yet giving him a chance at forgiveness. Yet, the forgiveness of Peter by Jesus was on condition.

    We are all called to repent of our sins, for repentance is certainly a condition for our salvation.

    Reply

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