Awful-Beautiful Conscience

 Awful-Beautiful Conscience

I would go ahead but there is a catch,

I long to act and move but I fear:

What I know in my head and feel in my heart don’t match

And though uncertain, my heart’s desires draw me near.

It is a great risk to obey the one at the cost of the other.

They say follow your heart, but what if it lies?

This I learned from the wisdom of my mother

For she too knows how the longing heart defies.

It would be wrong to go against my sense

I may act peacefully, but only when the two are in harmony;

And thus I was given a conscience for my defense

For great is the pain of defiance, and disobedience is folly.

Though it often causes pain, the blessed gift of conscience is indeed beautiful

It protects, for above all things the heart is deceitful.

Here is a sonnet I wrote for my British Literature class.  The theme is conflict, but more specifically, it is the frequent conflict between the passions and desires of my heart and my conscience.  My conscience is my mind’s power to pass moral judgment on myself, and so it serves to either approve or disapprove of all that I do.   Especially when I have committed wrong, my conscience is that which tells me that I deserve to suffer.  Essentially, my conscience is my internal moral compass which insists on judging me, and further judging me by the highest standard I know— Christ's standard.   In many ways, my conscience is God’s voice within me.  However, because of sin and the deceitfulness of a longing heart, my conscience may become seared and dull, and so I am vulnerable, because often my mind will convince me of what my heart desires.  Overall, though it causes pain when I fail, my conscience is a blessing, for it has the ability and awareness to assess my heart.  My conscience is a gift, and to disregard that which was given to protect and guide me would be both wrong and harmful.