Prayer

I used to see prayer as something beneficial for others, but not for me. I was too bad, too wild, too sinful for it. I also did not possess the humility to get down on my knees.

It felt like begging. Begging to something I was not sure existed or even cared for me. It looked like groveling for help. It looked like wishing some divine hand would poke out of the sky and reach down and drag me from the gutter.

My romantic relationship opened me to prayer. I guess that's what love does—makes you believe in something larger. Now, after meditation and yoga in the morning, my partner and I drop to the floor and pray. He showed me that prayer is simply thinking with focus. Its keen attention to all life already gifts you. It’s taking into account what you have now. It’s a conversation with a force much wider and more knowing than you. It’s faith in the thing you can't name, but feel.

A few months ago, I wrote a prayer of my own. I recite it every morning. It is as reads below. Feel free to use it if it resonates with you.

My beloved, thank you.

Thank you for all you’ve given me, and for the consciousness to focus on the benevolence surrounding me.

Orient me to the inner riches, especially when blinded by doubt and distrust. Allow me to appreciate even what I can’t understand. Let the great mystery be exciting instead of fear-ridden.

Give me the grace to see the loveliness in others and accept people as they are. Let me see myself in all others, and rid myself of the superficialities of our differences. Let each word and action be seated in kindness, and impure thoughts dissipate by a lack of involvement in them.

When struggles come, imbue me with the wisdom to stay present with what’s happening, and not push it away or see it as wrong. Give me the courage to feel like I am equal to the challenges, and the knowledge that nothing that ever happens to me is below my dignity.

Let my responses bring resolution to conflict instead of escalation. Remind me that difficulty is an essential part of the path, and not estrangement from it. Let these difficulties humble my arrogance and point to my interconnectedness; that I cannot do everything alone. Let me be comfortable with asking for help when I need it, and give generously without restraint.

Allow the discernment to know what is for me and what is unnecessary. Let me live in the acme of truth, where perception meets reality as it is without distortion from fear and desire.

Unburden me from the vanity of self-obsession. Strip me naked from the ego and all falsities that separate me from love.

Let me be as wild and free as the earth you’ve birthed; as brilliant as the sun, as flowing as the river, and as sturdy as the mountain.