In Frederick Buechner's book On the Road with the Archangel, the star is the archangel Raphael. This supernatural helper has a tough gig: gathering the prayers of human beings and delivering them to God. Here's how he describes the range of pleas he hears: "There are prayers of such power that you might say they carry me rather than the other way around. There are prayers so apologetic and shamefaced and half-hearted that they all but melt away in my grasp like sad little flakes of snow. Some prayers are very boring."
Compose a prayer**that's so powerful and entertaining that it could thrill an archangel. ~ Pop Quiz
Dear All-That-Is of Which-I-Am,
I pray You'll allow me to ramble:
Where to start? Hmmmm? Oh, do You remember the time when I was 6 years old staring into the sweltering Sun demanding that You show Yourself to me and I didn't go blind like my brother said I would or that time I was super sacrilegious taking communion unbaptized at Mary's church and found a dollar on the floor then put it in the collection plate? It was in those moments - I swear to YOU -- when I knew We were good. That is, always will be, the prayer: We are good. And in 'good' I mean, when the We becomes simply me, I get to question You. I get to doubt You, I get to dismiss You. Basically, I get to carry on like a spoiled child. I get to Woe-Is-Me. I get the whole-nine-yards of freewill. And in 'good' I mean. I get to love You. I get to tithe to You. I get to see You in Everything. And in seeing You there, I am present to the You in Here. The We, again. I get to acknowledge myself as creator ~ a damn good one particularity when it involves drama ~ and I get to acknowledge my freedom to gracefully unlocked any creation I've managed to conjure into reality with your help (btw, we need to get working on that comedy). I pray for continued awareness and consciousness. I pray this really awesome dress I love goes on sale. And, of course, world peace. I pray people come to understand that You/Consciousness cannot be contained within the pages of a book and that Your greatest desire is to fully manifest Who-You-Are aka Love. You will fully manifest when we understand Who-We-Are to You. Yours eyes, Your ears, Your mouth...allow me to be sacrilegious one more time (and throw in $10 bucks because I'm not sure we're square on the aforementioned $***) ...we educate You. We are the Tree of Knowledge with each Me-leaf potentially (it is always a choice) invaluable conduits of Love and compassion and all that yummy stuff that seeps through the pores of war, fills the stomachs of famine and pierces the eyes of hopelessness. We tell you how it's all looking, sounding and holding up down here in this microscopic hotbed of Beingness. And, You-As-Love, so generous as to be unquantifiable, take our information, refine it, purify it and send back in the holy ways of serendipity, dreams, inspiration and deja vu. But because we aren't always that great at paying attention, You consistently fall back on Your "Heavy Hitters"...yes...the glorious little babies. Those cuddly little clean slates. God, You're good!!! And by 'good' I mean Full of Grace offering, unconditionally, Divine Reprieve. So, I guess, really and mostly, I pray for Your continued hope in Us...yeah. Keep Us good.
Love,
We
P.S. I'm really not as strange as I seem. Ha...
*My grandmother is about to turn over in her grave.
**Origin (of Prayer): 1250–1300; Middle English preiere < Old French < Medieval Latin precāria, noun use of feminine of precārius obtained by entreaty, equivalent to prec- (stem of prex ) prayer + -ārius -ary; compare precarious ~ Dictionary.com
***That was a joke. I live in abundance!