Three Essential Prayers

I haven’t read Anne Lamott’s Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers yet, but I heard some of Renée Montagne’s interview with her on NPR a few days ago. I think Anne is a genius. Here is what she said in the interview:

“Help: People say ‘help' without actually believing anything hears that. But it is the great prayer, and it is the hardest prayer, because you have to admit defeat — you have to surrender, which is the hardest thing any of us do, ever.

“Thanks (full prayer is thank you thank you thank you thank you): It's amazement and relief that you caught a break; that your family caught a break; that you didn't have any reason to believe that things were really going to be OK, and then they were and you just can't help but say thank you.

“Wow: The prayer where we're finally speechless ... When we don't know what else to do we go outside, and we see the sky and the trees and a bird flies by, and our mouth drops open again with wonder at the just sheer beauty of creation. And we say, 'Wow.' …”

I am not a pray-er, not in the sit and talk to God sense, rambling words on and on. But I do think I am in prayer most of the time. Nothing against those who find comfort in talking things out with God, I just don’t. I believe our lives are a constant prayer that some entity hears. As you have heard me express before, my favorite name for that Essence is Barbara Brown Taylor’s “One Who is More.” I fully believe there is something bigger than me, than us, out there in the Universe and within each one of us and in all of us communally. It doesn’t matter by what name we call it, but please, let it be so, because we are not nearly big enough.

I was awake last night for a good while, and the three prayers came into my head and swirled and swirled there. It was good thinking time. I wish it hadn’t been in the middle of the night; sometimes that’s all we have. I thought about times this week I have said these prayers.

On Wednesday I came within an inch of ramming into my mother’s caregiver’s car when I backed out of the carport. I don’t know what made me look into the rearview mirror just in time to slam on the brakes. Then I just sat there for long seconds and said, “Thank you thank you thank you thank you.” And then I said it again as I pulled forward and adjusted the wheels to back up again clear of the car.

I don’t attribute God to my glance into the mirror at just the right moment. I don’t think God works that way. Otherwise why would a young father taking his child to kindergarten one morning not be guided to look into the mirror in time to change lanes before the semi behind him on the interstate plowed full speed into his car? I am not more worthy than he, and the consequences of my inattention were much much smaller. When I said “Thank you thank you thank you thank you” that last year’s tornado missed my house in Raleigh by less than half a mile, I wasn’t really thanking God for sparing me. It damaged dozens of houses of people God cares about just as much as She cares for me. I think we just send gratitude into the Universe and trust that it is heard. Because we need to express gratitude.

Mt. St. Helens hasn’t been visible for many days. But when I woke up on Thanksgiving morning, the rays of the rising sun was turning the sky behind the exposed mountain the color of sunflower petals. The rest of the sky over the valley was gray. That is what I woke up to on the official day of thanks. I just sat in my bed and said “wow!” Over and over. Then I said the second great prayer, “Thank you thank you thank you thank you” that I get to live in this amazing place right now. Then I said, “wow!” again.

The sky overhead remained gray all day, only the swath of sky on the eastern horizon was clear, the snowy white mountain standing in relief. The next day all was hidden again. Did God create the sunrise? Did God hide the mountain for days while wrapping it in snow then present it just to me tied in a yellow sunflower ribbon? I believe in atmospheric conditions. I don’t believe God creates beauty and controls its occurrences and who gets to see it, any more than God creates tornados and earthquakes and hurricanes and tsunamis and floods and sends them to destroy some people but not others. But I appreciate the power of the Universe, and the One who created the Universe. Something deserves our awe, and so I say “Wow!” to the One Who is More. Because we need to express wonder.

As Anne Lamott says, the first prayer is the hardest. “Help.” It requires surrender, and that is nearly impossible. We want to keep believing that we can conquer whatever it is dragging us under. Or we want to believe that it is someone else’s fault or responsibility that we are in this mess and therefore there’s nothing we can do to fix it. As if it's not ours to surrender, so we just stay in the stew. Or maybe, having gotten ourselves into the hole, we think we don’t deserve to ask for help.

There are many times I should have prayed this prayer, but I only remember one. I was a junior in college in the midst of a crisis of faith. The thought that there is no bigger being than I, was scaring the shit out of me. And leaving me bereft and alone. And yet it had come to seem so absurd: believing in God, mysticism, the unexplainable. No Santa Claus, and now no God. After months of gathering despair, I lay down on my dorm room bed one afternoon and sobbed. And I let go. I surrendered. I said, “Help.” In that moment a presence soft and light as a blanket of cloud wrapped around me and, without touching me, held me close. The touch said, “I am here.” I lay motionless, afraid it would go away. I felt loved and safe. In that moment, I knew I did not have to understand. The One Who is More does not require that we comprehend; only that we have faith. That we have faith, even when faith is impossible. Especially when faith is impossible. In her sermon last Sunday, Nancy Petty, (Pullen Baptist Church, Raleigh) telling the story of Hannah, said, “Hannah went to the limits of holding on, and when she couldn’t hold on any longer she had the wisdom to let go.” Hannah had faith, until she had used it all up. Then she let go, and went deeper. She opened herself to a faith that she could not access by herself, and offered her sorrow up in surrender.

Friday my yoga teacher said, “It’s not how deep you go, it’s how you go deep.” Go deep with intention. Go deep with the surrender of “help,” the gratitude of “thanks,” the delight of “wow!” I don’t know what more Anne Lamott says about the three essential prayers－I look forward to reading her book－but I am grateful for her wisdom.

Napping with Cats

Yesterday afternoon I took a delicious nap with my cat on my stomach, providing weight, like a blanket during savasana. (Well, 15 pounds of blanket, but still.) Something I have learned from a lifetime of cats as pets, is to let go of expectation, at least when it comes to the cat. A cat may or may not sleep in your lap while you read, watch TV, or nap. And if she or he does and you shift your weight ever so slightly in an attempt to keep your lower extremities from going completely numb, they jump down and go back to sleep under the coffee table. When you try to coax them back, promising not to move again, they open one eye and look at you like you have completely lost your mind. With a cat, you get what you get when you get it. There is no use expecting anything. And so I don't.

I wish I could do as well with humans. I try, but I cannot seem to get over expecting them to behave like I think they should, or be who I think I need or want them to be. Expectation is disappointment under construction. Most of us build house after house of disappointment with commendable consistency.

I used to have great expectations for myself--primarily that, along with being a gift to humanity and the world, I would live happily ever after. I still expect to live happily ever after, but my vision of what that looks like is constantly evolving. Like an amputee, perhaps, who expects to walk on two legs all their life but has to adjust the vision to moving on wheels or with a manufactured leg. Maybe my great expectations were really someone else’s assumptions. My new more modest expectations may be lower in some senses--reality brings us a bit closer to our knees. But from our knees we can see more of what is above us--the people who walk with us, the faces of those who depend on us and on whom we depend, the One who lights the way.

Speaking of expectations, in the garden I expected to be observing the inhabitants dying a natural death this time of year. But, no; they are suffering--as am I--from five weeks without rain and, as of yesterday, 91 days this summer of temperatures above 90 degrees. Just a few facts from the record books: this summer broke the record of days over 90 set in 2007, which blew the previous decades-old record out of the water. Raleigh is fourth on the list of states in the nation with most days this summer of temperatures above normal--at 68. I don't know the origin of the term Indian summer, but I think it is supposed to be a good thing: a welcome stall of the relentless march toward the winter cold, not an uninvited lingering of an already oppressive summer. The grass is brittle, the breeze rattles in the dry leaves in the tops of the still green trees. A tree partly on my side of the property line has lost all its leaves. From drought stress or death? I guess I will have to wait until spring to know. The branches that fell on the neighbor’s garage several weeks ago are still there, brown and ugly. I would have expected them to remove the debris by now.

I have one outdoor water spigot with two hoses attached, two watering cans, and two rain barrels--empty. I have tried to keep things watered, but I can't keep up--partly because I am loath to use precious water on plants, and partly because it just is not possible to adequately imitate Mother Nature, and I don't have the patience. I struggle with not knowing when to press on--at least keeping them just barely alive until it rains again--and when it is time to let them go. (I have the same issue with people, now that I think about it.) And do I use the precious water on annuals, that are going to die anyway, or on perennials, that will come back anyway? And do the perennials come back if they go underground too soon, or are they dead under the surface, too? I guess I will find that out next spring as well.

On the other hand, an unexpected delight has been the plant that has looked all summer like a weed. And it is, I suppose. It grows wherever it wants to, mostly along the edges of beds in part shade. The wimpy leaves have holes in them that look like the work of insects. I pull some of them from time to time, but they come back. Some of them I have left alone. I don't know its name, but now, when everything else is wilted and without blooms, these "objectionable" plants have beautiful feathery purple blooms on them.

There was a super harvest moon Wednesday night. That is when the autumnal equinox and the full moon come close to coinciding. The “stars” are aligned, so to speak. It happens only once in about every 20 years that they are within hours of one another, and results in a unique twilight illumination. I didn't know that until Thursday, I had never heard of it until Thursday; but thanks to a dear observant friend who called and told me to go out and look at the amazing moon with her, I did see it. I wish I had known that I was looking at a phenomenon. The not knowing has given me an opportunity to muse on what might have been different had I known. Would I have looked at it differently? Probably. But the moon would not have been any different, it is my eyes that would have been different. Is it a reminder to look at everything as phenomenal? Absolutely. My friend knew it was phenomenal without the internet telling her so.

Speaking of phenomenons, it rained last Sunday afternoon. There was not a cloud in the sky. I noticed this while reading under the dogwood tree. There were white bits of plant matter lazily floating about, illuminated in the light of the sun slant.  And there was something else falling fast and straight down, as only raindrops can do. I moved out to the open and stood in it with out-stretched arms to increase the body surface; I laid down on my back spread eagle to further capture whatever it was; and sure enough, tiny drops hit me softly--with nearly imperceptible wetness. There were no sprinklers on; and as it had not rained in four weeks, it was not blowing off trees. I noticed it again yesterday. Something to do with humidity, I suppose, but I really don't need to know the explanation.

I know not everything is a sign, or even a metaphor (though if you are a regular reader of my blog that is probably news to you); but I cannot help thinking about how such an unlikely thing as raindrops from a cloudless sky intersects with my life. At a time when I am feeling empty, and as though some of what I want in my life will not happen, the raindrops remind me that we just never know. We just never know what will come out of seeming impossibility. It gives me hope.

I just finished reading a new novel by Anne Lamott. It is very disturbing. One of things we parents maintain great expectations about is that if we love our children and care for them as well as we possibly can, they will survive adolescence and become whole adults. This story shatters that bubble. Some teenagers are hell-bent on destroying themselves, and it takes a parent who is willing to do everything that feels wrong to have any hope that the child will turn a corner and save themselves. We want so badly to stay in our bubble, even when we know that we are living in la-la land. And those whose self-interests are best served by our residence within our bubbles, are very good at keeping us locked up in them. But bubbles can be imprisonment. Only when we burst them do we set ourselves free.

At any moment we can be born all over again. When we let go of our expectations and embrace what is, we free ourselves to move on to our true life. “It’s love and gratitude that change people [including ourselves], not laws and expectations.”