Be Careful What You Pray for…

On 12/5 I wrote about my new spiritual discipline of practicing gratitude and praying that my desire for things that aren’t simple would fade away, that those things would become undesirable to me. I also prayed that I would become more aware of God’s abundance in life. As many others do, I close my prayers by saying “amen” – let it be so.  

And indeed, that is what came to pass. It became so: Things that aren’t simple have become undesirable to me, they have lost much of their appeal. I have also become much more aware of God’s abundance all over. Am I happy, now that my prayers have been answered?

I feel a deep sense of peace. Things are right with me and the world and I feel more tenderness for and connection with all the children of God who populate this earth, the two-legged kind, the four-legged kind, the ones with fins and wings. I am keenly aware of LIFE pulsing and reverberating in all, through all, among all.  

But I would be lying if I said I were happy. As tender as I feel towards myself and those with whom I speak, most conversation topics are uncomfortable for me, both my own part and my conversation partner’s. I feel low-level distaste for many of the settings I am in and the activities I am engaged in. I had no idea that so much of what normal people say and do revolves around being dissatisfied with things as they are. And in the same instant I become aware of beauty and plenitude, my heart is pierced with how I – we – neglect to care for and nurture all these precious sparks of LIFE.

Gentle reader, when I started my exploration of abundance a month ago, I did so with a spiritual director’s confidence that although only God knows what lies ahead, I can still feel confident about  facilitating the process for myself and for others. Today I have no confidence in my ability to facilitate a process for myself or anyone else. All I have to offer is my own sorrowful sense of peace, my own broken-open-ness, my tenderness towards all LIFE. All I can do is come before God as Samuel did and say and “Here I am…. Speak, for your servant is listening.”

For prayerful consideration:

God, here I am. Speak, for your servant is listening.