Almighty God and Ground of Being, Ineffable and Eternal One beyond name, You are a mass of contradictions to me: terrible and fierce like a hurricane yet gentle and soft as an intimate lover, transcendent beyond comprehension yet nearer to me than my own body. I confess you are a mystery to me and will remain so regardless of how many hours I read, pray, contemplate, or attend to the means of grace. So I come to you in humility and ask for you to come near to me on this dark day. All the days are dark, God, since I have lost my precious wife and children and my home and church and dog and, and, and... You have seen my tears, how they have poured out day and night for months on end. You have seen me in my moments of dark disbelief and nihilism, as well as those moments of fasting, self-denial, and intense communion with You. I acknowledge even now that as I write this little prayer, I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Perhaps that is a self-pitying way of seeing my life and, if so, deliver me from it. Yet it seems to describe my soul-state. Yes, I have much that others do not have: I have food, shelter, clothing, and good friends. Despite these many advantages that so many in my world do not have, there is a cavernous darkness within my mind, body, and soul. I seem to be incapable of forgiving myself for my past sins: for falling into addiction, for the anger and self-loathing that seeped out onto the person I loved the most in this world, for becoming a slave to self. Perhaps this inability to forgive myself, even after weeks and months of fasting and weeping and crying out to You, is actually a form of pride. If so, kill it. I don't want the pride, but I am bound to it perhaps even more tightly than I was once bound to those horrid opiates.
I must turn my heart to gratitude. I must choose to do so because it is a matter of life and death. Therefore, even though my heart feels like cursing my darkness and raging against what I perceive to be injustices, I will instead give You thanks. Thank you for coffee and egg McMuffins every Wednesday morning with an elderly saint. Thank you for my bright-eyed and energetic daughters, both of whom are healthy and filled to the brim with potential. Thank you for a mother and father who welcome me into their home when I just need a place to belong. Thank you for my sister's text messages. Thank you for the return of birdsongs in the morning as the dead of winter gives way to new life. Thank you for brief moments of respite from anxiety when I am able to forget myself and just enter a state of flow. Thank you for good people who pray for me. Thank you most of all for what I remember on this holy week: the passion and death of God With Us, the image of divine suffering, and, mostly, for the hope that will dawn on first day of the week very early in the morning. Once again the women will go to the tomb in mourning and once again they will flee in a state of bewildered excitement.
Hear my prayer, even as I utter it from the dark side of the moon. Amen.
I must turn my heart to gratitude. I must choose to do so because it is a matter of life and death. Therefore, even though my heart feels like cursing my darkness and raging against what I perceive to be injustices, I will instead give You thanks. Thank you for coffee and egg McMuffins every Wednesday morning with an elderly saint. Thank you for my bright-eyed and energetic daughters, both of whom are healthy and filled to the brim with potential. Thank you for a mother and father who welcome me into their home when I just need a place to belong. Thank you for my sister's text messages. Thank you for the return of birdsongs in the morning as the dead of winter gives way to new life. Thank you for brief moments of respite from anxiety when I am able to forget myself and just enter a state of flow. Thank you for good people who pray for me. Thank you most of all for what I remember on this holy week: the passion and death of God With Us, the image of divine suffering, and, mostly, for the hope that will dawn on first day of the week very early in the morning. Once again the women will go to the tomb in mourning and once again they will flee in a state of bewildered excitement.
Hear my prayer, even as I utter it from the dark side of the moon. Amen.
