A Month Of Sundays - Opening

1

Forgive me my denomination and my town; I am a Christian minister, and an American. I write these pages at some point in the time of Richard Nixon's unravelling. Though the yielding is mine, the temptation belongs to others: my keepers have set before me a sheaf of blank sheets -- a month's worth, in their estimation. Sullying them is to be my sole therapy.

my tongue is the pen of a ready writer

-- PSALM 45

This principle of soul, universally and individually, is the principle of ambiguity.

-- PAUL TILLICH

Sale of the book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as "unsold or destroyed" and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

A Fawcett Columbine Book
Published by Ballantine Books

Copyright 1974, 1975 by John Updike

This edition is published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincide3ntal.

An excerpt from this book originally appeared in Playboy magazine.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down, yea, we wept
When we remembered Zion.
We hung our harps
Upon the willows in the midst of it.
For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song,
And those who plundered us requested mirth,
Saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How shall we sing the LORD’s song
In a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget its skill!
If I do not remember you,
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth—
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.

Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom
The day of Jerusalem,
Who said, “Raze it, raze it,
To its very foundation!”

O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed,
Happy the one who repays you as you have served us!
Happy the one who takes and dashes
Your little ones against the rock!