Sabbath Reflections

I don’t go very long without water. Sometimes, though, I neglect or avoid prayer deliberately, like ignoring my wife or a friend because of an issue I don’t want to face. But the restless, unnatural isolation of life as a lone ranger draws me back like a thirst. A thirst for intimacy, I suppose. For nearness, acceptance, consolation. Sometimes in prayer, the lightness and calm euphoria return. The longer I live the shorter my prayers become. At least the spoken part. Sometimes it’s just stargazing and saying, “Thanks for the evening, it was heavenly.” Prayer becomes listening more than petitioning. It is like sitting by a stream. Watching the movement. Unable to read the hieroglyphic of light on the surface, but consoled by it nonetheless. “I pour my heart out like water,” the prophet Jeremiah said. Sometimes in tears. Sometimes in anger or confusion. Often in gratitude. Often in silence. Always in longing. I wait. The river bends toward me. Or I am moved toward it-toward the presence of God. Whenever this happens the current carries me. To deep, still water. And I green.

Ragamuffin Prayers ‘Memos To The Almighty’~Billy Sprague