My prayer is to soften our time together in the woods,
To open, allow and really listen to the voices that are not my own and not like mine,
And give them ample room to manifest
So they may grow mossy and green
In the wide or narrow spaces between us.
May I be softer, too, and land lightly on a humble branch
Choosing to enter the wilderness without my wicked shears
Deciding to follow, stand, or shelter
Without blazing trails or trampling all the holy ground
With my own wild and hungry child
My prayer is to let go of that which wasn’t meant for me,
And pile great degrees of literature, philosophy, theology, psychology and neuroscience,
And gather all the ice skates and ballet slippers and athletic gear and grand pianos and cellos,
And fold up celebrity and microphone and center stage
And place it all on massive floats,
Then push them out to sea with candles meant for others to light,
While I stand where I am with awe and respect
Bathed in the brilliant flame of another
Able to receive the generous gift of inspiration and learning and warmth
Because I finally dropped my own heavy robe of wishes.
My prayer is to be embodied,
Embraced, held, grounded inside the skin and bones where I was born and where I will die.
I want to follow the bend of my own desires to the nape of your neck,
And wake entwined by you,
But only I can nurture every organ with oxygen and kale
And strengthen all my limbs with sweat until I can dance again,
And lift small children and swing them in circles
And do yoga on my head when I’m 92 —
I want to care for my body as if it were bound to my soul
And not some secondary burden where pain lives,
Locked in all the joints of an immobile life.
I want to remember its flushing purpose and the miracle
Of thumbs and eyes and hearts.
My prayer is to lighten up and find my inner dapple,
To laugh and delight in the chuckle and the cheek
That crouches with a smile on its face inside
The small stuff of the ordinary day
Waiting for me to wind the handle and let it loose —
Popping all the weasels fearlessly!
And let me be okay with the way I clumsily arrive,
Springing briefly into shocking view,
Swaying back and forth with the glee that is my own tilty wit
And let me remember that when I disappear again inside my brightly painted tin
I’m just one crank away from rising – not far at all, really, and always ready to be summoned.
And finally, while I am here rummaging through the old neglected toy pile,
May I please stop being so suspicious of smiling adults, and instead ask them if they’d like to come out and play?
My prayer is to create,
Great or tiny works of art –
To show up at the altar of my one true heart
Before empty canvases and blank pages and long hours
And find god there, waiting for me to arrive —
To concentrate deeply by the shores of my own soul
Until all its astounding colors find their way up and out
By a grace that magically rises whenever
Creation is invited to stay.
My prayer is to move you,
To open the strangled box inside my throat
Where I’ve locked up all my jingles and jangles,
And sing my phenomenal solo;
The one I’ve practiced all my life, made from the notes collected along the way
A composition of yearning crescendo and soaring invitation —
A tune that is catchy and stays with you always,
or one that is new that you’ve never heard before, and especially one that
Turns you toward the music of your own awakening
And the lifted voices and choirs around you
My prayer is to be astonished,
To go bravely and frequently into the great unknown
Because I don’t know what I don’t know.
To drive to Boston, catch a flight to Borneo,
To walk down an alley without a map and just arrive.
To remember that if even one unexpected poppy can make my heart soar with joy
Imagine if I were to stumble across a field of rumors and find them all true!
I want to show up in all the unfamiliar rooms and gatherings of the world;
In the town where I live, in my own backyard gullies,
And on continents I can’t pronounce –
At the foot of a waterfall
In the dust of poverty
In places where my heart will be broken by a starving child
Or raised by an ancient wall
Or strengthened by an act of my own servitude —
Expanded by the gift of the undiscovered.
My prayer is to keep my mind off the reservation,
And thunder across open fields with buffalo and bonfires
Hunting far and wide for our native land —
For places where we are interested in one another
And in stars
And grief
And rituals of joy and communion
And to live unembarrassed by this fierce loyalty to the precious tribe of the soul —
To wear my tattered skins and feathers even in saloons and cities,
Even in the crush and call of comfort and progress
Even when I am pushed to the margins by careless claims
And named dangerous, or primitive, or unsustainable.
My prayer is to live by the sea with apple orchards and birds
With rolling hillsides, and old stone walls,
And twisted branches and peonies.
And with just the smell of the ocean,
And my bare feet in the June grass
And my hands in the dirt —
Hold all of god’s great glory in my own simple garden,
And after a long day kneeling on this heavenly earth
May I carry it back beneath my nails
Where it will rise like tiny moons at the end of it all.
My prayer is for a cup of tea,
Brought to me quietly while I write
Made from a kettle we share,
In a kitchen we clean,
In a world that is generous and kind.
My prayer is to love you,
And let that be enough.
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