4/24/12 Tuesday-ish prayer

(While thinking about Psalm 23)

Dear God;

There is that moment before sleep when

I am resting in to it when

Relaxing in to it when

It is as though someone has flipped the mattress when

My arms fly out when

I grip the mattress

For

Dear

Life

In order to keep me from falling into

Oblivion.

At least, it's oblivion I'm afraid of.

The reality is that I do not know.

It is not obvious it's oblivion.

It could be that, indeed, that the nothing I am afraid might be there actually is but

Maybe

It's just a short fall that won't hurt at all.

Maybe there are pillows on just the other side of oblivion.

Maybe there are green pastures and still waters; 

Maybe restoration, there.

There is no obvious obligation to oblivion being obligatory;

"obligatory" being that state the living reside in after being convinced that the end of one thing can only result in an easy heaven, a merely appropriate purgatory or an eternal-increasingly painful hell.

(Here, there are memories of Charlie.  Charlie was a huge, giant muscled, 28 year-old, six foot six, mentally different, camper and I was his skinny, 16 year-old "assistant" counselor at the camp for "special" adults.  He loaded heavy boxes on to trucks for Goodwill and grunted to communicate.  He always seemed angry to me.  

We were at the pool at the same time as the 2nd grade camp and, as he stood in the middle of the water trying to figure out what to do.  Some scrawny 7ish year old kid, for no apparent reason,  jumped on his back.  Charlie reached back, grabbed his arm and flung him a good five feet.  The 7ish year old kid screamed as he flew threw the air, in to oblivion, and was only silenced by plunging in to the water.  

Everyone froze.

7ish fought his way back up out of the water, inhaled a desperate breath and then exhaled laughter and joy before, as quickly as he possibly could, he swam back towards Charlie to be flung in to oblivion, again.

It soon became a pool full of 7ish monkey-piraña making the water foam as they rushed toward Charlie as quickly as possible and as they climbed Charlie and he, with his left and his right, flung the screaming, laughing 7ish through the air; arching through the air then splashing like the most bizarre fountain.  He did not smile.  He may have grunted with delight.    I could not tell. 

It was dangerous and beautiful.)

What happens if I fall?  If I let go loose of this death grip I have will you catch me or let me fall and which might be better?

(Will you,  even, fling me through the air with a graceful arch of unintention?)

Amen.

4/10/12 Tuesday Prayer

(from marketingforscientists.com)

(Prayer inspired by John 20:19-31)

Dear God:

Sitting at the local pub. Having a nice agreeable, appropriately sarcastic conversation about politics 

we agree about.  

Then, the "What do you do for a living part?" part of the conversation.  

"I'm a minister." 

Pause.  

"Really?"

Single head nod from me, then

Pause.

"You mean like a Christian minister?"

Single head nod accompanied by a "Yep" then

Pause.

"Huh."

Pause.

Turn towards me with confused look while saying:

"But you seem smart..."

Pause.

"Um..."

And another pause.

"Er..."

And another pause.

"Thank you?"

"No, seriously.  I mean that as a complement."

And the conversation continues 

as gracefully 

as a middle school dance.

Because, how do you, then talk about that blurred, overlapping line between thinking and praying?

How do you talk about miracles?

How do you talk about doubt and

Faith making you miserable and

Faith making you angry and

Faith making you face failure and

Faith making you doubt and

How do you talk about Love holding 

on 

like 

skin?

Walking through doors that you know you had shut and dead bolted and padlocked?

Inviting you to doubt it as it stands there

In front of you

Knowing you are, 

simply, 

too smart 

to believe?

Pause.

Pause.

Pause.

Amen.

A Tuesday prayer on another day...

(Vaguely inspired by Isaiah 50:4-9a from today’s lectionary)

Dear God:

Thank you for the gift of snark and the snarky: 

this gift of prophets and messiahs and disciples and kings; 

this gift of activists and satirists and teenagers and non-conformists; 

this gift of artists and musicians and comedians and even the occasional preacher.

Thank you.

For all those days I needed to laugh conspiratorially,

Thank you.

For all those days truth needed to be cut loose, 

Thank you.

For all those days I felt bound by those damning hints of threats that would suggest lies or disloyalty,

Thank you.

For all those days I stood in the way of this truth or that truth and needed to be shoved aside,

Thank you even for that.

(Although not as much.  

Just kidding.  

Sorta.)

Let the Saints of Snark revel; 

those Aesops and Ovids;

those Chaucers and Swifts;

those Oscar Wildes and Miguel de Cervanteses;

those Mark Twains and Wil Rodgers;

those Dorothy Parkers and Dr. Suesses;

those Kurt Vonneguts and Lenny Bruces;

those (add your Saints of Snark here) and here.

Those unknown saints around the camp fires and those long walks that were present during those Holy Awful Days that helped them make it to Better Miraculous Days;

those who snickered at Centurions;

parodied Pilate;

and spoke with biting, cruel and honest, anger about those things it was right to be angry about.

For snark; Thank you.

(And for those who don’t get it, well, bless their hearts).

Amen.