When we find ourselves blinded by electric light, or in my case looking up out of a deep dark well, a heavy cloud, a rage of fear or loss… where do we look for assurance? (‘Let it out’ Christ Wells)
What might we hold onto, where can we find a hand hold, a rock to stand on, to grasp out of our unknowing…
Words, give shape to ideas…
For an interview, I recently found myself needing to justify my existence with someone. What could I say? In preparation, I found it hard to find real genuine moments of worth, without using imagined exaggeration and hyperbole.
So, before the meeting, I turned to speaking to the void…
Might we all say a little prayer, when faced by an oncoming struggle… strapped to a boat in the strengthening waves, with rain pounding and squall lashing the rigging… many of us might say… god help me through this… please…
Do we revert back to a petition, to that thing beyond of us, that intangible strength inside of us? That thing that’s deeper than our understanding, higher than our constructed self, wiser than our cleverness, bigger than what we comprehend…
Without choice words, seeing beyond our ‘self’ can be hard to do.
Our cultures have constructed rituals and mantras, but unless we really need and genuinely mean them, words can become a meaningless dirge or perhaps a disenchantment.
As mentioned, I recently found myself needing to justify my existence. I came up with a few reasons but in retrospect found then desperately faulty and wanting. I found myself appealing to the void… please help me be genuine, true, and to see what’s real, right and helpful…
But how to appeal outside of our faulty self illusion…
I’ve got a lot recently for hatha yoga and meditation, linked with this is the idea of mantra and chant to verbalise that which is outside of our self comprehension.
In this moment of need, I fell back to what I was repetitively taught as a child. The Lord’s Prayer
I guess the familiar words might mean…
To those learned elders who’ve been before us,
now at peace over the world, appeal to you..
You know what’s right and just, and I ask that your insight and strength be present and peacefully here and now.
Help us realise what we need and be thankful.
Forgive us for our wrongdoing, and help us to understand the similar failings of others.
Help us to recognise unhealthy ways and to choose more wholesome routes forward.
The world is and will always be greater than I can comprehend, I am thankful to be part of this magnificent creation.
Forever and ever…
So be it.
Perhaps just the enchantment of ritual words outside of our whirling tangled self illusion might help us get through and grow…
Perhaps Christ taught his disciples a prayer not to teach them to be pious and obedient but to help people everywhere to live well and flourish.
Traditio
nally…
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
Amen
Of course words alone can be disenchanting… Yazoo, In My Room:
Jules P Richards 