(Psalm 73:6)

Pride is the real killer that’s for sure/While Lust, Greed, Envy, Malice, Rage and Bitterness all play their part/And just as surely drag us all the way to hell/Pride does it with far greater efficiency/In time/Lust’s fire will burn out/Greed will sicken itself/Envy will poison its own soul/Malice and Rage and Bitterness will flap their wings/But in the end they will exhaust themselves/Pride stays

Pride won’t let go/Like encrusted food on the fork/defying the scorching spray of the dishwasher/Like greasy film on the cooker hood/that no Fairy can remove/Like body fat scum on the shower tiles/that laughs and laughs at Domestos/Like the chameleon virus/deftly dancing on the edge of our antibiotic shield/Pride sticks

Pride conceals itself/It lies for years undetected/It changes shape and style with every new revelation/It hides in the cloak of religious zeal/It slinks behind a mask of goodness and good intentions/It has no colour, sound or smell

But pride stinks/Like a bloated fish on the foreshore/Like undiscovered rubbish in the bag where maggots gather/Like boiling bones when the pot burns dry/Like putrefying flesh after the massacre

Pride is only defined in the negative/It is what humility is not/Humility is/The sweet fragrance that rises from a life at peace with God/It fills the room and touches all around/It softens the hard heart and brakes the spells of years/It makes the ugly beautiful/It joins the broken bits together once again/It surprises with joy and healing and beauty

It is the loveliness we have only seen/In just one person/The only One/Who though he was God/Didn’t hold on/But let go/Came down/Became a slave like one of us/And made himself humble/Humble to death

And….Pride’s days are numbered