Here’s to the rapture

I read recently that the word prayer derives from the Latin precarious and “contains the idea of uncertainty and risk.” Will my pleas be heard? When I am seized by a sense of helplessness, my orbital world spinning out of control, when all I can do is close my eyes and speak to whatever mystery I whole-heartedly rely on, depend on, need to believe in, will my requests be granted? Will some vast form hanging in the ethers note my blind faith? Note my willingness to look beyond myself for some kind of assurance that life as I know it will be ok, resume to normal, be better than I could have ever imagined?

Please let this work out. Please let us be ok. Please don’t let my next path I walk be filled with needles and vomit and hair loss. Please let my children figure out their twenties before they are thirty. Please protect my youngest from being picked on. Please let me resist the urge to need another slip dress.

While prayer may be risky business — gambling on something I wish to hell would happen (or not happen) or not having a single clue if my words and  actions will yield the outcome I want— I do it anyway. Regardless of the outcome.

That despite the unknown, crazy hazy way of walking around having no clue what will happen today, tomorrow, and the next years of my life — I still find comfort in assembling words that could be the difference between resistance and trust.

Let this be. May this be. Please. Help. Thank you.

If you would like to read the two poems I selected, words that are brought to you by that part of ourselves that find comfort in asking the big and often unanswerable questions then I would love you to join the conversation and subscribe to read something beautiful (every damn day, or week).

May the right words open you in ways that provide comfort amidst the high flying dance our lives.