AIDS PSALM

AIDS PSALM

There is much concern about AIDS, again, this summer - whether it is possible to conquer it with some new drug, and how Africa, in particular, is going to be able to survive it. I was very moved, some years ago now, by a television programme about a Catholic priest in Los Angeles (I think) who tried to be close to people suffering from AIDS and about his own reactions to it. This psalm is not for the faint-hearted, therefore! I have tried to express some of these responses to the disease, as if it were a single person that I am meeting.

1. This man is created by you and you love him

why have you made him different from everyone else?

2. He questions his feelings, for he is lonely

he cannot again be straight, or look for the love of a woman.

3. You've made him intelligent and good looking

you've endowed him with his body and his emotions;

4. is he tortured for giving free rein to his feelings

while so many normal couples are adulterers and go free?

5. If he'd been faithful to one friend, would you have spared him

are you killing him now for one lapse of morality?

6. Is it just him you regard as perverted

though you made him as he is, and many others before him?

7. I'm afraid of him, for you have afflicted him

nobody will touch him, he is outcast and ashamed.

8. Because of him, I too am conscious of my feelings

I need to learn the limits of my fears.

9. In a crisis, I must face the dark inside me

there's no time to grow up slowly while people are dying.

10. Will I hold him and kiss him to show him I care

for Christ the friend of prostitutes can forgive him also?

11. You come to me in this man, as if he were Christ

when I hold his hand, I am touching you.

12. If my friend who has AIDS is also a child of yours

then even my deepest feelings I can safely express to you.

13. My love brings me closer to your presence

for you are beside me especially when I am fearful;

14. in my times of joy and happiness, you whisper your words to me

but in my pain and anguish, your voice shouts out aloud.