Sometimes you find
You have to start
Again
From the beginning
Start afresh

Sometimes you find
You cannot continue
From where you left off
You must
Backtrack

You have to go back to God
And ask for the commandments
Again
Because
You broke them
Or
You blew it
You played your cards wrong
You failed
Again
You sinned
And now
You have to start again
Or else
Stay where you are
Stuck

Dear people,
Please don’t make yourselves stuck
And please don’t go downhill
Because
It’s no fun to be stuck
With your sin, with your pride
And nowhere to go
It’s no fun to go sliding downhill
Getting worse just because you couldn’t
Start over
You will have to at some point
You don’t have to make it harder
(It will never be too hard to do, but it will get harder.)

Just give up
To God
Just give up
Your sin
Just go to confession
Really, just go
You can do it.
You will get Grace
To follow through
Just make a good effort

Besides
The priest can’t tell anyone
(Seal of the confessional.)
And you don’t have to tell anyone afterwards either
Then you start over
A fresh start
A clean soul
A free soul
What a small price to pay
For so much
A new soul,
A pure soul!

But if you did a person harm
You also must apologize
To them
Before you move on
All you need to say is
“I’m sorry”
That’s all
It might be hard
But you can do it
Just do it!
For God’s sake
For your sake
For the other person’s sake
For anybody’s sake
For your soul’s sake
More than you think
Could be at stake
You might have
A lot to lose
More than you know.
Just say it truthfully
And you’re done.
If you don’t
You may have regrets
That can never be fixed
Unless God fixes them

How many great saints
Would never be saints
If they hadn’t started over
Or given up?
St. Dismas
St. Paul
St. Augustine
St. Mary Magdalen
And so many more

For saints are made of sinners
Who gave up sin
(Although it is possible even if you don’t)
So never be afraid
To start over
After a mistake.
But at least
If you can’t apologize
Or go to confession,
Know why you can’t do it.
Don’t make excuses for yourself
Do the most honourable thing you can do
Without going to confession or apologizing:
Recognize your weakness
And pray for the grace to do it.
(At least next time)

But this isn’t really
The kind of starting over
I meant
When I started
I was thinking of the other kind
The less common kind
Where you find yourself stuck
When you’ve done nothing wrong
But somehow things just aren’t working out
Like Joseph with the coat of many colours
Or like Job
It seems no matter what you do
Things don’t work
So you have to start over
Sometimes more than once
You ask for something from someone
And they say no
So you begin again
You ask someone else
A funny time
Of new beginnings
That sometimes happens
When you’re waiting for God
To do something.
And you don’t know what to do
So you go back to trying to do
What you did before
Like the apostles who tried to go fishing
After Jesus had died
Because he didn’t say what to do
When he was dead
They stayed up all night
And caught nothing

So we keep going
Sometimes starting over
But always moving forward
Always learning how things fit
Always learning how to continue from where we are
And how to start
Again
With every day.