How do I pray for a world that seems to be going to hell? Three hundred people were slaughtered under the radar while the war goes on in the Middle East, the genocide continues in Ukraine, and my own country rallies around a man who is dividing us, them and us, without defining them and us, just bottling all our emotions in a coke can and shaking it up.
Life Is Like My Garden
The perennials still need planting. They’ve been sitting in those plastic pots all summer, drooping now because we need rain. Whether I put them in the ground or not, whether they live or die, who cares? What difference in the big picture of paying bills, picking up kids from school, cooking dinner and going to work – if flowers live or die?
Yet my mind and heart say, “You must get them in the ground before the first frost, at least water the ones on the tables and bring the geraniums in for the winter – You must! You must!”
Why? Who cares? Like the three hundred slaughtered, like the Middle East war, like the Ukrainian genocide, like our civil war facade – who cares – who cares – what difference does it all make?
I care!
I care because YOU have taught me to love – despite my horrendous mistakes of the past – YOU have taught me to love.
What difference does that make?
I don’t know. I’m not YOU. I’m not God. I only know it does make a difference – to love – love beyond myself, my world, and my circumstances. Thankyou!
I toy between making a to-do list and letting You work out my day. Sounds stupid and pointless to worry about, but making You first is what I decide. But it’s a lot easier to make You first down here in the basement where the only chore is making coffee. How is this all to be done? How do You expect us to live?
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things will be given unto you…”
My only obligation is to start the day with You, and let You figure out the rest.
I read Michael Singer’s The Surrender Experiment years ago. I sat with him in the sun and just let life pass. In theory, it was wonderful. In actuality, it was hard not to ‘go out and make a difference’…at the very least to make that to-do list and begin to tackle the jobs one by one…and if I need help I’ll call on YOU. But deep down, for me, that is not how my life is supposed to work.
For me! Not you! What is right for me is not necessarily right for anyone else. I learned that while I was trying to be like the desert saints, reading writing and praying, staying to myself, studying…I couldn’t do it, not the way they had. Even our modern preachers and teachers, the sacrifices, the rituals…I couldn’t do it. A kid wanted to play, the coffee boiled over, the dog bit the cat…My eventual little piece of reading and praying before beginning the day is what I have been led to do. We are all individuals, different as the snowflakes and maple leaves of my youth – hell – my mistakes though qualified as screw ups, are as individual as the grains of sand. So the way we prioritize our lives are just as different: heed our passions, share our joys, face our fears. They are just as singular as our personalities. What holds us all together is that we human beings, personalities, experiences, gathered together as one, make up who God is – all of us – past, present and future.
So how I attack this day will be different than every other person ever lived. How I perceive my world, how I react to my world, even my unusual prayers about and for the world will be as individual as I am. Therefore, I can only pray with my whole heart, that I am doing the right thing, Lord, that at this moment I see the inch of path before me, and I’m following YOU.
We all had dreams of something different. Mine began at 7yrs old sitting on the floor of the living room, in a corner, typing away on an old Royal typewriter, writing a newspaper for the neighborhood (which I delivered by bike…pink Shwinn), duplicating it with blue carbon paper, black ribbon ink smudged on my hands, on the carpet, on the walls. And a bird book. I remember leaning on my windowsill listening to the blue jays and robins screeching at the squirrels. Yup my first book was a bird book. Ah youth! Dreams! Alive in my mind as if it were yesterday. Maybe that is the consequences of getting old.
May Sarton wrote a book in her seventies. I read it when I was in my thirties. Now I am that old. I am tempted to buy the book, read it again and compare philosophies.
“In that day…(I) will no longer rely on him who strike them down but will truly rely on the Lord…” (Is 10:20).
I can’t change my circumstances.
Well, according to the world I can. I can just go out, get a better job, find an apartment, and live my life. But I choose to stay here. Maybe its just easier that way – safer. I have a place here – a purpose I suppose. Those others would say I am just too lazy to change my circumstances. Yes, I’ve read all the books that tell me so, and listened to all the Ted Talks and watched all the YouTube lectures. Maybe they are right. But every once in awhile, I get this peace in the pit of my stomach (what is a soul?) that tells me that this time and place is the right time and place for now. “Believe.” I prefer to listen to this whisper than to go on my own. I’ve seen the mess I’ve made of life on my own. I have screwed up big time…every time…even in the best of times.
I’m living proof that pride comes before a fall. Sometimes I’ve scrambled back. Sometimes I’ve faltered and fallen again. Most times I just barely hold on to a lifeline, so near to drowning that Jonah’s three days in the belly of a fish look inviting.
I still hear the screams of the three hundred slaughtered; I still hear the cries of the wounded in the trenches of Ukraine; I still hear the sobs of the hostages in the Middle East; I still hear the starving, the sick, the displaced; I still see the flaunting TikTok bodies and puffed up Twitter politicians; I still feel the rumble of David’s wheelchair across the cold wooden floor. Autumn is here. Winter is coming. And all the plants and flowers will be soon buried in ice.
Where are YOU?
How do YOU make a difference?
“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth…Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the belt around his waist…”
We are taught in church that this is the prophesy for Jesus to come. But You’ve come. You’ve left. And the world is worse than ever before. What are we to believe? Indeed the synopsis of the world about God and Christians is justified. I sound like a fool when I tell others I believe in God and Christ, because except in my heart I don’t see YOU anywhere and I certainly can’t prove that YOU exist or at the least care.
Yet amidst the questions and doubts of those around me, questions and doubts I cannot answer, I flee to my room, to this space, where I am safe – just with YOU. “I am under vows to You, my God; I will present my thank offerings to You. For You have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.” Thankyou!
Oh Lord. Oh Lord. “Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives…” Oh Lord, that I might be found here, talking to your people, encouraging them – people I have never met – This is my desire, that maybe through me, your people who have discovered this website, as amateurish as it is, may be given hope – that they are not alone. That YOU hear, YOU listen, YOU care.
I have been the servant who took the talent and buried it in the yard. But YOU have given me a second chance. No – a third – a fourth – a fifth…YOU have neve given up on me. So let me dig up the talent and use it for YOU. And YOU do with it as YOU please – as if YOU needed my permission.
I pray that this is a new beginning. I pray that this day is a new beginning – and that as long as my heart and motives are pure, YOU will bless me this day.
