Saint Judas by James Wright

When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.

On my first day of English 314, one of my favorite professors projected this poem onto the screen without giving us any context (we knew neither the name of the poem nor the author). He then asked us to analyze the poem -- to break it apart and to answer who we believed the speaker to be and how we felt about him.

I remain astonished by the ideas that went through my head and the contrasting reality of the character of the actual narrator. My first idea was that perhaps the speaker was Jew that had been thrown in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. The references to the narrator's number and the guards led appeared to validate my suspicion.

However, my second thought was that perhaps the speaker was Jesus of Nazareth. I referred to all of the allusions to Christianity and wondered if perhaps the author of the poem intended this poem to be seen from the perspective of Christ during the atonement (namely, the suffering in the Gethsemane and in the Cross). But then I was thrown off by the last stanza's allusions to Judas.

Following the discussion of our ideas, my professor, in all his wisdom, revealed the nature of the poem and pointed out that the class had unanimously granted the narrator of this poem mercy. In spite of his evidently guilty conscience -- the narrator fully intended to commit suicide due the shame and guilt he felt -- we were all willing to cut him some slack for finding love enough within his heart to help somebody in need.

Do good deeds cancel out our bad decisions? Can one receive redemption for their most malicious acts?

In so many words, it's not up to me to provide the answers to the questions this poem may raise. However, what I can say is that without knowing the details of the atrocities the narrator had been responsible for, I was able to give him another chance. I yearned for the opportunity to sit down and tell him that everything would be alright. I believed that his good nature was still within him and I wanted him to hold on to that and let go of the past.

Now -- how often are we not willing to overlook the hurtful deeds committed by the ones we hold most dear? How much harder is it to let go of the bigger hurts? We're so quick to be offended -- to feel entitled to feel angry, hurt, upset. We feel it is our right to become bitter because we want to hold the keys of judgment in our own hands. We feel that if we don't reach in a certain way, we are then condoning the behavior of those who have harmed us. As I refer back to the poem, I urge you to consider the way you felt about the narrator. Remember, no matter how bad or evil an action may seem to us; our perspective is infinitely limited. We all fight our own battles against others and against ourselves. But we can never fully comprehend the extent in which a specific experience can influence somebody's life and behavior.

When put in a position to judge, remember, you can never truly understand someone's intentions; someone's state of mind and reason. We all fight our own battles. So, why not cut them some slack, as you were willing to do to Judas?