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.

Traveling with a Camera on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day dawns crisp and cold with a hint of snow in the air. I rise early, build a fire and settle in with a cup of coffee for a few moments of quiet before the happy chaos begins. The turkey is waiting to be trussed and put in the oven for its slow morning roast; the smell of baking pies filled the house yesterday. Later the family will arrive, the grandkids racing up the sidewalk and jumping into their Gigi’s waiting arms.

Okay. That didn’t happen. It was crisp in the early morning--I think, Smudge and I were slug-a-beds--on its way to 68 degrees without a cloud in the sky. It has been nearly a decade since I hosted Thanksgiving dinner; I don’t even have a dining room table. And any thought of that particular Thanksgiving vision ever happening vanished almost two decades ago. It’s okay; don’t cry for me, Argentina.

I’m not sure how eating too much got wrapped up in this holiday. Well, yes, I guess I do--that whole pilgrim and Native American thing we reenacted in grade school every year: the white paper aprons, black paper top hats, and colorful paper feather headdresses that were our art project in the preceding weeks. The long table filled with food around which everyone gathered--the Norman Rockwell one with the gray-haired grandmother holding the turkey and multi-generations of white faces leaning in laughing, happy to be one with aunts and uncles and cousins. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has had to re-vision the day.

Last year in this space in Gratitudes Large and Small, I recorded what I was grateful for each day during Thanksgiving week. I read back through it on Thursday, and with one notable exception, pretty much nothing has changed in my life--right down to clean sheets on the bed! Next year there will be a new grandchild and officially a new daughter-in-law. That is exciting, and I give thanks for the anticipation.

But back to this year. As I eat my pecan waffles for breakfast, I am entertained by the cat watching the mourning dove glaring down at the squirrel eating the bird seed I didn’t put out for either one of them. A titmouse is pecking at the last bit of suet in the feeder at the window. Need to put in a new one today. I finish my second cup of coffee, putz around a bit, then head out of the house in the late morning with my camera to see what gratitudes I can capture. I dress too warmly, hoping it isn’t really October heading for September outside. I call my mother from the cemetery, and hear that she is not enjoying the windy rainy weather that I am wishing for; and is envious of what I am disappointed with. That makes me laugh. I place a rose from my garden on Mary Minges' resting place and say a prayer of gratitude for our garden that brings me such joy.

What follows is a collection of what my camera and I gather: the whimsy, beauty, and activity in my neighborhood. What my camera doesn't record are the laughing voices of children hidden within the walls of a house; the two dressed-for-visiting men and their little dog being welcomed at the door and the sounds of “Happy Thanksgiving, come in!” to a woman arriving alone at another house; the smell of a turkey on the grill and the sweet aroma of pumpkin pie on down the street; the white-white tree that standing under transports me to another universe, so breathtaking is its beauty and grandeur. I thought it would make me sad to be out walking and observing, and it is a bit of an out-of-body experience, like Scrooge observing his life from a distance. But I am not sad. I enjoy the voyeuristic richness of it so much that later in the day I go out again. After the feast, the activity has changed--people are out walking and painting fences (and singing) and putting up decorations for the next holiday and...

(If you can figure out how to make this slide show full screen on your computer, it will be better! I can't.)

Gratitudes Large and Small

The first hard freeze crept through in the night. This morning the Persian shield, the coleus, the elephant ear, and the banana tree have frozen. The flowers of the lantana and penta that were orange and purple yesterday are brown today. The leaves that remained on the neighbor's Japanese red maple are on the ground. On this first Sunday of Advent, the earth has turned inward to prepare for re-birth.

If the only prayer you say in your entire life is thank you, that will suffice. ~Meister Eckhart

This Thanksgiving week I name some of those things, big and small, for which I say "thank you."

Sunday

1. The corner table at Cafe Carolina. Each week for the past 10 years or more, I have occupied a coffee shop table with my Fresh Market blueberry scone and my journal. Ritual becomes home. The table changes, the scone changed for a time, but the sense of home remains.
2. That I could pay for the new battery my car unexpectedly needed today; even though I didn’t like having to. (But now my radio doesn’t work, thanks to the “anti-theft” device. The car thinks the radio was ripped out of its housing to sell on the black market.) And for my car that still gets me where I need to go in spite of having traveled nearly 200,000 miles.
3. The beautiful old cemetery: a lovely and interesting garden in which to walk, to think, to just be.
4. That people read my blog. My Mac that makes blogging possible for me.
5. An invitation to Thanksgiving dinner.

Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel.  ~Author Unknown

Monday

1. The 7 a.m. carillon wafting across the airwaves from St. Augustine’s college and in through my open window. 
2. The honking of low-flying geese.
3. A foggy morning.
4. The location of my work: close enough to the church’s bank to walk there each week on work business and to Cameron Village and the YMCA. That I can walk.
5. Berries that color the garden when everything else has retreated.
6. Finding, in a 12-year-old file, the code to reset the car radio.

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.  ~William Arthur Ward

Tuesday

1. Smudge in the morning. Each morning after dawn (never before), she sits by my head watching; eventually slowly extending her leg to butterfly-gently touch my nose with her paw. I am reminded of waking from a nightmare and standing silently at my mother's side of the bed, willing her to wake up--gently touching her shoulder with one finger if she doesn't--so I can get in bed with her and feel safe.
2. That I can get up at 7:17 (unintentionally) and pull into the church parking lot at 8:00, without hurrying. I live that close.
3. The roses at a house near mine that won’t stop blooming and catch my eye on the way to and from work.
4. Emma, who stays in nearly daily contact. The technology that makes that easy.
5. Being confident at and enjoying my work.
6. Smudge at night, greeting me at the door, warming my lap as I sit on the sofa.
7. Green tomato /black bean soup and green tomato muffins from the freezer. The product of my garden bounty.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. ~Albert Schweitzer

Wednesday

1. Jokes on the radio that make me laugh out loud on the way to work: “The last time Carl Castle was patted down at airport security, he made such an impression the agent slipped a dollar into his belt.”
2. My good and thoughtful friend who paid a surprise visit to my office at 8 a.m. with a hug and a Christmas cactus, expressions of her gratitude for me.
3. A not too warm, not too cool day; just right for a mid-day walk to Fresh Market for a tiny cup of coffee and blueberry scones for the weekend.
4. And, speaking of FM, I am grateful for that sweet little grocery that plays classical music and is a peaceful place to hang out, even when I need no groceries.
5. That I am not allergic to cats and red wine and dark chocolate.
6. The beginning of a four-day weekend. Not because I don’t like to be at work, but for the opportunity of renewal that comes with a change of routine.

Belief isn’t always easy. But this much I have learned-- if not enough else--to live with my eyes open. ~Mary Oliver

Thursday

1. Old, new, and renewed friendships.
2. Clean sheets, a bed to put them on, water to wash them in, a washing machine in my own house, a job to pay the mortgage.
3. Japanese maple red.
4. Mary in the garden, and for keeping my house for me.
5. The friend who encouraged me to give Brussels sprouts one more try. And the recipe I found with pistachios and dried apricots.
6. My family: sisters, son, daughter, daughters-in-law, grandchild; and my 94-year-old mother's presence in this world and her good health and strong, happy voice on the telephone.

 To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.  ~ Johannes A. Gaertner

Friday

1. The pale moon hanging in the early morning mottled sky. I grab my camera, but I am too late--the clouds blow in and hide it.
2. Gray days.
3. The opportunity to observe the details of the rise and fall of autumn. It doesn’t go down without a fight. The banana tree has two new unfurling leaves, even while the top most ones are brown-edged from the cold. The hydrangea has new growth. The lantana and penta bloom on; and even the lorapetalum has some blooms. The new burning bush and weeping Japanese maple, and my small “ordinary” Japanese maple lost every leaf this week; but the huge dogwood and the larger Japanese maples in my and others’ yards are still bright red beacons in the gathering gloom.
4. That I live in this country--however flawed--where people voluntarily stand in line for hours to get an i-phone on sale; rather than in a country where people are forced to stand in line for a loaf of bread. There is something seriously wrong with that.
5. Clementines ("Give thanks. Give Cuties"). Redbox. A new Pink Martini Christmas CD. Digital cameras.

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.  ~Thornton Wilder

Saturday

1. This country--however flawed--where I am free to be me: a woman, a lesbian, a liberal-thinker, a voter. A country where I don’t fear for my life at the hands of those “in charge” for being any of those.
2. Candlelight and fireplaces, with and without friends to share them.
3. Public libraries and the books that fill them.
4. Yoga. A body able to stretch.
5. A lifetime of better-than-good health. 
6. A church community to which I can return after hiatus and feel at home.
7. My garden.

 Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.  ~Melody Beattie