A Few Good Prayers

 Breezily, a few good prayer intentions:

first a prayer for togetherness, centering. I believe there is a certain power of sympathy that shared breathing deeply in and out within the presence of others. I also know that touch is so often fleeting and that something very engrained, reactive, can be soothed, if lingering in an embrace. A hug that holds with trust may even tap a deep brain, soothing our keyed up alert systems, and in the calm with our inner electric pulse syncopating beta waves are transmitted. At least it's true that heartbeats can align with others metaphorically:

What if we might all sync, in breath, ah, sweet, clapping hearts, beating wings! Trumpet blasts loud? 

I won't add further expository introduction to each prayer, but there are so many wonderful ways to practice the art of expectation. One of them comes to us from ancient tradition. I once watched a wonderful film about an orthodox Jew who woke and immediately began his daily practices. He wrapped his arms with straps, bringing the word of God to his flesh, and at the same time addressed the Holy of Holies with the gratitude of the created for the Creator. This is not my tradition. The words, the gestures, what do I know of these things. I won't describe them. The effect was that the powerful gesture coupled with a verbal formula is stimulating our attunement to our higher purpose.  In my own words then:

Wake, joy, oh heart. With a morning promise of meeting the moment as I am, made by your design.

People often seek something of others, without really stopping at the threshold, say, of an experience, just to acknowledge to oneself, that moment has passed, and a new space is ahead, the passage isn't recognized. We make another person into our valet, seeking recognition, and the service of being seen, and typically we have blurted out with full-steam ahead momentum some of the experience. What about a short prayer to help with acting for ourselves, a kind of preparatory signal just to whisper under our breath, a few words that may even help us gather up some of the first fruit of wisdom, a petition for new eyes to reflect on an experience, even just to be our own friend, willing to hear what we've gone through. 

After it, be it as it may, notice a second cup of surrender, taken like a found friend, anew, willing ear.

And now the long, bucolic classical prayer language:

The following three prayers are meant as placeholders, or, turrets for the hot serving dish of a meal. Good prayers come in all sizes. Yes, our thoughts generally repeat. Prayers do as well, and the ancient longings roll in our common understanding and may come to us even from some wellspring of God who has written all the commands in our hearts. But, also, we do have some prayers that only seem to be a product of a monk's slavish vocabulary. Recast. 

Oh divine, finder of the way, path of testing, grant that what you begin in us, we continue.

The shape. Architecture of faith is where we place ourselves in contemplation, as opposed to the physical area the extension of our body, seated back straight or legs folded beneath us in contact with the floor, the closeness of our situated space and the smell reassuring, atmosphere if we are out, feet naked in sand, or in dewdrop wet grass, whether at a stoplight and attending to God with a mere attitude at a glance, accepting with a pause even the possibility of an encounter with the peace of eternal reality. We cast prayer. The lighting of a candle that alights is one figure often compressed in traditional terms, beckoning our senses paradoxically to the insensible, what is not yet, the light we pray for. The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is ancient remnant of the Temple:

Wall to the west, we place our words in you, but evidence of our presence, our goal is only You.

A last classic, the turn of image of God who in every prayer, always already inspires with grace to know God's ways. A confident voice quakes, then simpers at the almighty. A hush comes over a crowded room. The storm that has swelled the seas, dissipates. The heated knot in the chest or that place in the body wherever is stored may be a place to touch with one hand as a gesture. 

Bury my sword in my enemy, oh vengeful, wrathful commanding One, but first, transform my heart.

From the Sounds of Holiness, a collection of ponderings;

How about the prayers that come unbidden, as if from far away. 

Gong! Reverberating in the tower. Gong! Welcoming the chosen hour. Gong! Not a judgement not a judge.

And finally, a playful note of relationship, said with a light heart, onomatopoeia if a cooing morning dove had a low thick shuddering blessing for a committed love:

Bwoo, Bwoe, Bwed, Bwe, Pray we wooing love, or woeful lost, all we have is wedding past, may we last.

Keep praying! It's not homework. It's not hard. What is it then? 

As St. Ignatius would say, "It's exercise" :)