It’s A New Day
There are so many definitions and expectations surrounding the spiritual discipline of prayer. What is the right way to pray? Does it work? Are there better pray-ers than others? How often and for how long should I pray? It can feel daunting and defeating trying to say the perfect prayer or sit cross-legged and meditate for hours on end. Sometimes prayer can even feel like another “to do” to check off the list in our efforts to do all and be all. But what if prayer is at its most simple and authentic, a conversation. No audience or panel of judges to rate your performance, only a private moment in the time of your choosing where your guard comes down and you speak the truths of your heart.
To live soulfully, is to acknowledge the spirit within, a spirit that is very much alive, who has things to say, questions to be answered, brokeness to be healed, hopes and aspirations to be fulfilled, friends, family and strangers to entrust, imperfections to be forgiven, and deep needs that this world simply cannot meet. To pray is to experience relief that we don’t have to do this life completely on our own. Do not try to be perfect or poetic, just lay out your own truth. The best conversation is gentle, organic, intimate and conducted between your deepest reality and The Deepest Reality.
God,
If only I could return to where I began
I would do things differently,
Soul first.
Like a priestess, I would bless and anoint.
I see now that everything is sacred.
Nothing would escape a “thank you,”
even the despair.
You might be surprised, but I would turn the other cheek this go around
And not be afraid of the thunder, knowing the rainbow will come.
Be still, I would.
And listen.
You are always whispering The Way.
I would be a poet of the ordinary, revealing the extraordinary.
My tread would be oh so gentle on this earth,
peace, my middle name.
Always in conversation we would be, soul to Soul.
I would believe You when You say: I am Yours. You are mine.
Ridiculous—marvelous, the way I would love.
To save another, is to save myself.
I would keep the light on inside—Even,
when the Darkness appeared victor of my night and my day.
Because Your hope does not disappoint.
It is a new day,
I will do things differently.
I promise.
Amen.
Read and reflect on my favorite prayer by the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
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