I still do it. Get up every morning and try to pray my way to a perfect day. Pray my way to a life completely free of struggle, need, and the anxiety it produces. Does it ever work? No. Will it ever work? No.
This morning, just after I completed yet another pointless prayer session, this scrolls across my twitter:
“Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us.” ~ William James
Now I have no clue who William James is, but he obviously knows something I don’t. Then, moving onto my email, I get a notice of a post from a creative writer whose blog I follow. It was disputing the old adage of always “writing what you know”, a concept I used to teach and believe in firmly. He said our real creative work comes from the tension of where an artist lives – on the edge. On the edge of what is believed and known to society as a whole. It is in the tension this produces where creativity thrives. (It’s a great post – I posted it on my Facebook this morning if you’d like to read it for yourself) Point is, twice in the space of fifteen minutes, two strangers on the Internet pointed out my pointless praying.
Then I went to yoga class. The teacher that pushes me to my max was there. The standing series was hard for me today. Once again I was face to face with “struggle and need”. I lay in savasana STRUGGLING with the heat pressing down on me, and NEEDING a breath of cool air. I found myself once again facing anxiety over something that was never going to go away as long as I continue my practice.
In the back of my mind I know that struggle and need in everyone’s life is as sure as death and taxes. What I’m learning now is that it’s pointless to try to pray it away. Obviously it’s there for a reason.
Then it dawned on me. I have to change my prayer. Instead of trying to pray away “struggle and need”, I have to pray that God will show me how to use it to “excite and inspire” me. I guess that’s called “embracing” it; a term I’ve always had trouble with. To me, an embrace is a hug. I’m not going to wrap my arms around struggle and need, but since it’s an inevitable part of life, I will learn to respect it and focus on how to use it.
And so, as another day goes by, lord God help me to accept the struggle and need you place in my path and show me what to do with it – show me how to use it to “excite and inspire” instead of praying it away, and…I have written.
You’re getting the message loud and clear my friend!
Joan