To Pray
2024. A new year. We made the passage and across the threshold, a blank canvas beckons. My friend took to canvas on New Year’s Eve. When I congratulated her for this creative endeavour, she responded in kind that painting, or writing, or dancing, or cooking, or gardening is like air. It kindles the soul fire and fills the psyche with warmth and light. I agree.
There is a lot that could be said about a new year. Resolutions. Intentions. Possibilities. For me, in 2024, I resolve to act in kindness. ACT. On a local Facebook page, a poster noted that he was stranded when the mobility service taxi could not take him to pick up his van at the repair shop. He noted that he was a paraplegic and he needed the equipped mobility service. He was frustrated and took to Facebook to rant. The owner of the service responded with apology and explanation. Special training and certification are need to transport someone with special needs and this certified driver was unavailable. While the original poster seemed to understand, the social media sharks circled and expressed all manner of outrage on behalf of the original poster. Like rubber necking past a car accident, I read the posts and wondered why social media constellates this behaviour. Then, a surprise. One person addressed the original poster and asked a simple question: “Can I help you get your van?” So simple. So direct. So willing to put actions ahead of advice. As I understand it, the poster was willing to drive to the repair shop on behalf of the van owner and deliver the van back to him. This, in my opinion, won the internet. I felt moved and inspired.
Weeks earlier, someone had asked for help getting to the hospital for an appointment. Again, the keyboard warriors quipped in about taxis, Ubers, community service organizations, etc. Each offer was either a capitalist or a socialist outsourcing. The original poster’s request for help was almost drowned out in the well-meaning but outsourced offer of solution to his need. Then, someone posted, again, simply: “What time do you need to be there?” Arrangements were made and the angel driver solved the problem with action. So moved, someone else direct messaged an offer of gas and lunch money. Community.
I was in the local grocery store and I heard raised voices. An old man was asking to speak to the bakery manager about the price of blueberry muffins. Seems the old man, into his 9th decade of living in the community was expressing outrage at the price of 6 blueberry muffins. I watched at the bakery manager listened respectfully and tried his best to explain how the prices are directed by corporate decisions. I was caught. I wanted to solve the problem and offer to purchase the muffins for the old man, but I also did not want to interfere, or offend. There was an air of dignity to the old man that demanded my respect and paralyzed my action. I didn’t know what else to do. So, I prayed. I prayed that the old man would feel better just having been listened to by the bakery manager. I prayed that the inflated prices would soon come down. I prayed that my courage to act would grow. I prayed a solution would emerge. I think sometimes we don’t act because we have forgotten how to act. We have forgotten how to be in community. I know I have.
Suddenly, the bakery manager asked the old man if he would join him in the coffee shop for a break. He added with a genuine smile that he had a hankering for a blueberry muffin. The old man agreed. He added that his volunteer driver would be picking him up in about twenty minutes so he had the time. My prayer was answered. Suddenly I knew that prayer is action. As I left the store with my own groceries, I passed a precious tableau of emergent community. Three men: the old man, the bakery manager, and the volunteer driver were drinking coffee together, sharing a six pack of muffins, laughing and telling stories. I wept. This was a gift. So much better than my original Florence Nightingale solution to buy the muffins. I am so glad I bit my tongue and offered up my indecision to prayer.
Renowned Jungian psychoanalyst, musician, and theoretical physicist, Yoram Kaufman once said that prayer is aligning one’s consciousness to an emergent field. I think he was right. Prayer is action. So, into 2024, I pray. I pray that community grows. I pray that right action is offered. I pray that we remember how to lean into the discomfort of putting ourselves forward in need and in response to need.
How easy it is to complain. How easy it is to virtue signal and call out the perceived injustices. How needed it is that we find a new way, a better way, perhaps an old way. We are so connected to one another through social media, but alas, we have never been so disconnected. We have forgotten the glue that binds community. That glue is indebtedness. It is not reciprocity. ‘Even Steven’ is a lie. What keeps us connected to one another is the willingness to carry the gift given. Shouldering the indebtedness. Not resolving the discomfort with an immediate payback. But rather, paying the debt forward. Waiting for life, God, psyche to offer up a chance to respond in kind. And in the meantime, cultivating gratitude for the original gift. Real community needs both the asking and the responding. Indebtedness is a sticky place, but it is the glue that rebuilds community.
My friend is painting. I am writing. The soul fires are burning. For me, tapping these words onto the page helps me to understand what is emergent in me. They put me in contact with the deeper parts of my psyche. Hopefully, they connect me to you. Given as gift, may these words stir the embers of your own creative heart. May they inspire you to pick up your pen, your brush, your spade, or your spoon. May they put in your path someone who needs a ride, or a muffin, or a story. May they give us all courage. Courage to rebuild community. To ask. To offer. To act. To gift. To pray.