This Week's Prayer

From the poet Roberto Juarroz:

“The bell is full of wind though it does not ring.
The bird is full of flight though it is still.
The sky is full of clouds though it is alone.
The word is full of voice though no one speaks it.
Everything is full of fleeing though there are no roads.
Everything is fleeing toward its presence.” (SLT #487)

Dear love and light and life,

We bear powerful compassion, though the demands of everyday life sometimes overtake us and we forget. We are fiercely committed to each other, to justice, to the care of our planet, though we sometimes neglect all of these.

Thus do we forgive ourselves and begin again.

We are thankful for this day, this breath, this community – the people sitting around us right now who, just like ourselves, are caring and loving and sometimes self-absorbed; wise and insightful and sometimes clueless; helpful and resourceful and sometimes needy.

We are thankful for all of them.

Our hearts especially go out to all mothers everywhere today: wealthy and poor; lesbian and straight; married and single; beginners and experienced; the mothers of large broods, the mothers of only children; the mothers who have lost children, the mothers with estranged children; the mothers who gave their child up for adoption, and the adoptive mothers; the mothers raising children in the ways their mothers and grandmothers showed them how, and the mothers following the latest books of one or another mothering movement; the helicopter moms and the free-ranger moms; the smotheringly present, the neglectfully absent, and the good enough moms; the working moms, the unemployed moms, and the don’t-have-to-work-outside-the-home moms; the abused moms struggling to break the cycle; the moms in shelters, and the moms who have always been sheltered and protected; the scared moms and the relaxed moms; the moms all wrapped up in their kids’ achievement, the moms all wrapped up in their own achievement, the moms without prospect of notable achievement, and the moms who just love, moment to moment, without concern for achievement.

Bless all the moms.

There is a love that surrounds us though we do not know it. And healing happens though we remain broken.

Thus do we, too, flee toward our presence.