Pray all you like

Pray all you like, ask anything you want, but don’t forget that he never promised he’d say yes. He never guaranteed us anything. Not anything at all. Except one thing. Just one thing . . . .

That he cares . . . That is all. Nothing else.”

                                                                                       Madeleine L'Engle, Love Letters

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she sits in her tattered recliner

her frail body barely visible as it

sinks into its ragged vastness

her voice is feeble and cracked

barely audible above the cacophony of sound

coming from her valiant protector

who barks and growls,

his buggy Chihuahua eyes

peering

as he peeks around piles of magazine

the air is close and filled

with the smell of animal urine

but the eyes are bright

and the mind is sharp

and we converse

“how are you feeling?”

“stronger”

“how is the pain?”

“not bad, if I don’t move… shush dog, it’s OK!

  I hope to make it to church”

“It’s OK, we know where you are, please be careful,

  don’t push yourself”

“I went to the store, I held my daughters arm and shuffled away”

A grin breaks across her face

“I’m 88 you know”

“I know”

and so it goes

“pray for me” she says

and so I do

I am not so comfortable with prayers such as this

I can chat with the Sacred

blather on a mile a minute, as I walk beneath my beloved mountain

I can listen to God, quietly sitting, in the quiet of a late spring afternoon

but prayer such as this?

I wonder why it is so difficult?

I can think of many reasons

If I listed them the pious would no doubt be appalled an offended

That a minister found it difficult to prayer

But frankly

It feels a little odd to tell God what needs to be done.

Do this!

Do that!

Do it now!

It feels odd, really it does

God is not my servant

Who am I to direct and guide the Sacred?

As if!

No, I do not like such prayers

And yet

“Pray for me!”

And so I do…

“Thank you for a rainy day

Thank you for daughters

Thank you for mighty Chihuahua protectors

Thank you for memories

Thank you O Sacred one

For presence

And for love”

Now I am on solid ground

For the great miracle

has always been the Presence

Holy among us

the miracle has always been

that the Sacred should care

the Sacred does care

And joins us

Aging pastor, who doesn’t know how to pray,

Aged parishioner

In that little apartment

On a stormy afternoon