These Things We Pray

     I long ago gave up praying for patience, as the lessons that accompanied that little request always showed up in the darndest moments and in the most frustrating of ways.
     I used to pray for happiness, though with time I have come to realize that happiness is a fleeting emotional state...one you can't stay in forever even if you tried. The thing I believe we are really shooting for when offering up any request involving emotions or moods (usually offered to get out of one we don't like) is peace or peace of mind. A peaceful mental state does not run from the sadder emotions; instead, it treats emotions like house guests. They come. They go. They alert you to something you need to know and then, they are supposed to pass. Some we like better than others. Some stay too long and we wish they'd leave. In asking for peace of mind, I freed up a lot of energy I'd been wasting trying to avoid the emotions I liked least. I came to recognize is not wrong to be sad when someone dies or you lose a cherished pet... To the contrary, "sad" is the proper emotion and it would be sadder yet (and not too peaceful in your head, btw) if you didn't feel anything at all in these moments.
     But here of late a new word has crept into my prayer vocabulary...a recurring word...and that word is "meaning".  If I could have but one prayer word... one wish granted...one Christmas gift from God, here lately the word I keep coming back to is "meaning"~
     Whether I've stumbled onto this one as a matter of concern for how much of material, worldly life comes across as meaningless to me these days from senseless murders to horrific wars to crappy television shows to Black Friday Christmas sales, I have come to recognize that my own little peaceful moments are those of meaning...and not necessarily huge meaning. The smallest moments are usually my best (like looking out the window just as Charlie-goat shows Hix how to head butt or jump on a spool).
    Having numbed out the news, having muted the commercials, having blocked out the things I used to worry about and for which I have absolutely no control, I find myself turning to the things that I might actually affect, be it friends going through things, be it ME going through things...When I can say "God, point me toward the meaning here..." a sense of hope is born. For that reason I now weigh shows to watch, which events to attend or which conversations to engage in, prefacing these decisions with a quick assessment of "Will there be meaning or will this wind up a shallow exchange of my precious energy?" (in which case, I'd rather pass, even if just to stay home and hug big dogs).

     Whether "Will there be meaning?" or "Help me find meaning..." or "Let me bring some facet of meaning to this situation or equation..." the gist of the request is to find and focus on whatever worthwhile there might be in what I'm choosing to participate in...and whoever I'm choosing to participate with (be it group, friend, pup or goat).
     Whether laughing or crying, alone or with another, to me it feels a lack of meaning is in large part to blame for a world in so much pain.
   

The Spirituality of Bankruptcy

           We were long overdue. Both writers... both on deadlines, we’ve been meaning to catch up for some while. As is often the case before sinking my teeth into a brand new project, today seemed a good time (procrastination being that final step before the hunker-down stage, after which you don’t surface for weeks). So I reached out in the off chance she was up for a chat, and she was, so we did our best to cram into two hours, all that has meaningfully shaped us these past several months.

As for me, well, I’m over-extended. I’ve got goats to feed; dogs in need. My garden’s coming in too fast, and I ran out of the very cookbooks that pay my bills, meaning my new one gets delayed, (hence my need to seriously hunker down). In hers, new projects as well, hopeful things up ahead…but also, she shared, she had just filed for bankruptcy.

             Life as a writer is feast or famine by nature. This time her famine caught up. There are release dates you can’t control; editors you learn to tolerate… Publishing houses go bankrupt (costing you time and money to fish your intellectual properties out of the morass)…In short, you learn to be a duck: look calm on the surface while paddling like hell underneath.

            As we caught ourselves up (as close friends will do), I could not help but notice the serenity about my friend who was struggling 100-ways-to-Sunday last I’d spoken with her when she was trying to make ends meet and keep wolves at bay. How many conversations we’d spent over  “But if this happens…” or “We’re so very close” …all of which were very true. (It’s just so few think to check on us in our in-between times.)

            I listened intently as she described a peace that I could feel through the phone line if she hadn’t said a word.  “I don’t fight it anymore. I do what they tell me…Show up where they send me. To be honest, it’s been the most freedom I’ve experienced in a long time.  I had no choice. I am totally at peace.”

            Not one to judge who files for what or in which chapter, the moral of this story was less about financials, more about “Isn’t this the way we all should be living?”

            To be clear, this is not an expose’ on bankruptcy. I’m not recommending everyone go file. This is a commentary on living your spirituality --practically-- in the day to day. Could my friend have avoided it, she would’ve. But the manner in which she's approaching her life today….Well, isn’t this kinda the goal?

            Search it yourself, but you'll not find in scripture that Jesus kept a checkbook. And if you’ll recall, his 12 just up and left good jobs all to follow a stranger, (a story that would have reporters investigating a cult if it happened today). And if you really want to follow the money, you’ll find it was women (like Mary and Martha), not the guys, who paid for the groceries. (Granted, Jesus could do a lot with a little, but even those times began with donated food.)

            Not to sermonize...no, my issue is with the peaceful place in which this woman finds herself today. She could lose her house. She has no clue from whence her next dollar will land, but that she is literally, gut-level honestly living by faith…well to me, it spoke volumes.

            Conclusion of our conversation ended somewhere between “It’s all about releasing” and “We only THINK we’re in control…” after all, who amongst us knows when the next medical crisis, car wreck or layoff will change our lives forever?

            In the end, her insight left me in a state of wonder and awe…Her final conclusion is what I strive for each day: “When I start to get scared, (lose faith, run out of answers) what choice do I have but to hand it over?” (Follow up question: "Why must it take such fearful experiences to drive this one home?")

            As one who loves her friend, and hates she’s having to endure such, I have to say, her faith is making her whole. (And it doesn’t take a Div degree to recall how that one ends.)