On an Unclear Day

April 4, 2013

On an unclear day, you can hardly see tomorrow.  Today's that kind of day.  The kind that used to make me attack chocolate as though it were the armed forces of three enemy nations. (If  that were still my way of dealing with blurry days, I'd be air-mailing 72% bombs to North Korea, Putin's Russia....Can't think of a third target at the moment. That's how unlcear a day like this makes my head: can't even list all the dictatorships on my hit list.)

Now that I'm no longer in my 72% chocolate total warfare mode--war is delicious only to maniacs--
I plan to concentrate on more real-life strategies which don't melt in the mouth, but can sometimes sweeten a heart.

Prayer isn't a strategy in the more usual sense of strategy. Yet, sometimes, on "unclear days" such as today, it  IS how I get through the hours.

I will share two of my favorite prayers with you. Sometimes, I pray them to center myself, sometimes to signal God that I'm paying attention, sometimes as seat belts to keep me safe if day darkens.

First prayer: this is more advice than a prayer, but I rely on it daily. I used to be ignorant about what it's teaching, and am grateful to have found it, a couple of decades ago, in a Zen compendium. It's by Zen master Leonard Cohen: 

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There's a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.

The second prayer, said every night as I enter a drifting-off state--or repeatedly if drifting off quickly is plainly not in the cards:

The light of God surrounds me,
The love of God enfolds me,
The power of God protects me,
The presence of God watches over me.
Where I am,
God is.
And all is well.

I sometimes have trouble with the third line, but "enfolds" is a wonderful image. I didn't use that word; but, in November 1994, as I was moved into the chamber for my first MRI, I suddenly felt that the cold flat table was, instead, God's curved palm. I definitely felt "enfolded" by God's love.  The image of being safe in God's palm has made my many MRI's an utterly calm experience.

I do believe that "where I am, God is."  

Please, God, bless all who are, like me, having an unclear day.
And everyone else who wants a blessing, too.
Amen.
Amen.