Tuesday, April 24, 2012

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-piraƱa 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.


Tuesday, April 10, 2012

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.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

A Tuesday prayer on another day...

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.