The Song of the (Truly) Shipwrecked…
“These are the only genuine ideas, the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing and farce.” Jose Ortega y Gasset
If you watch Shark Tank, you’re familiar with that moment when some poor guy making a pitch starts to feel the investors’ interest waning, and the reality that things might not go his way causes him to get, well…clingy.
It sounds something like this: “C’mon, sharks! You guys don’t know how much I’ve sacrificed for this! I just need a break!”
And like a sinking ship, the Sharks watch his face disappear under the dark blue water of rejection.
Sometimes, when I’m trying to make my “pitch” to God, I feel like those entrepreneurs on Shark tank.
Or like a whining would-be-girlfriend (I sincerely apologize for the lazy sexist metaphor, and I’m not saying God’s my boyfriend. That would be weird.)
But desperation is desperation; it has a sad stench to it…
From Dream Deferred, by Langston Hughes:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore —
And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over —
like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.Or does it explode?
We all know the kind of prayers that come from desperation.
You’ve got to do this for me God. Or…Let me just explain why I think my plan is the only plan that works.
Situations that involve suffering very well might urge me toward weeping, whining, pleading, cajoling, nagging, and, when in a really tough spot, manipulating:
How do you expect me to fulfill my higher purpose with all of this going on?
Unfortunately, experience has taught me over the years that telling God what I think is best rarely pans out, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t working out for my best interests, that I’m not exactly where I should be, or that there isn’t a Divine spirit working things together for my good. It also doesn’t suggest a futility to prayer although it absolutely feels like it sometimes.
Ultimately, I believe that the Power that runs the universe is big enough to handle my awkward misunderstandings around how prayer works.
I try to keep the expectations at bay with this simple-yet-effective disclaimer: may your kingdom come, and your will be done.
This is where the work is for me.
I know…there are a few folks out there who feel they know exactly what God’s will is. I even have a few ideas about that myself. And, I am at the very same moment convinced that I actually…like, in reality…have NO IDEA what God’s will and/or purpose might be on a specific day, or concerning a specific problem. I can make some intelligent inferences, read scripture, listen to smart people who have some well-studied opinions. Like I said, though, I’m convinced that there’s too much I don’t know to be driving the bus for everyone other than myself!
I have settled into a contemplative prayer routine that is mostly about moving into stillness. Surrender. At the end, I say these words:
May I be healed, and may I be a source of healing for all beings.
When I started this prayer years ago, there was a kind of intensity to it. It was as if it was a secret code, words spoken with a whisper of incantation. THIS HAS TO WORK.
After several years of praying this prayer day after day, I have been afforded the luxury of observation. Am I healed? Being healed? Heal-ing?
Are the words magical, or even necessary?
Here’s what I think today. There isn’t a beginning or an end to healing; it’s a project, one that shifts, changes focus. Morphs. It isn’t my job to orchestrate outcomes around things that are out of my control (and a lot of the time, if I am compelled to pray, chances are, I am not in control, or I’d just handle it myself.)
My job is to abandon my self to the will of a power greater than myself, and it requires a kind of surrender that seems reckless.
I pray, I surrender, I trust. I ask to be healed every day because I believe that practice aligns me with spiritual purpose. What would a “healed” world look like?
How would the frequency of a neighborhood, or city change if everyone whispered that incantation every day?
It’s true, I often don’t see the outcome I was going for when I pray, but I choose to accept that as much as I can and work on my resistance to it.
Surrender is the legacy of the truly shipwrecked, and the song-of-the-shipwrecked is a tune we can choose to hum together.
May we be healed.
May we be a source of healing for all beings.
May thy kingdom come.
Copyright © 2019 Laury Browning
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