PrayingWithMyFingers

Dear God,

I feel You close by this morning because – at this moment – April and puppies are out of the apartment.  She is taking them to the doggie beauty parlor to have their furs cut and shampooed.  I am reminded of how much I enjoy and treasure silence……make that Silence.  I love the big Silence of being still and quiet in order to experience Your Presence in a way that is impossible when there are distractions – even if it is the pleasant and wonderful distraction of being with my daughter.

As I sit and let the Silence permeate me, I realize how much my eyes can distract me from Your Presence.  My eyes see this or that and lead me to think.  Thinking can stop me from just being and, in just being I find You.

But this reasoning becomes circular for me.  Praying with my fingers is a result of finding that sitting in silence, although a wonderful way of connecting, was not enough for me.  Praying with my fingers – writing my prayer to You – feels like the right and truest path for me to find You.  Yet still I worry.  After all, my whole life has been all about other people telling me what to do, how to feel and what to think.

Then this circular thinking reminds me that I don’t find You.  Never do I find You.  You are always and have always been present with me and for me.  I am always the one who moves.  I am always the one who turns away from You while You simply await my return.  I turn and sometimes become the Prodigal Daughter who thinks the world can fill me and supply all my desires.

And, as if on cue, my daughter’s key is in the lock and she returns.  Perhaps, in the end, it is all about timing.  A time and place in this life for everything – especially a time to be active and a time to be still.  A time to sit in Silent prayer and a time to move my fingers in pray that feels like the perfect fit for me.  Perhaps it is all circular after all as this prayer brings me back to the beginning of the weekend where I reflected on death.  A time to be born and a time to die.  A time for fresh-baked blueberry scones and a time for Pop Tarts, a time for peaceful sharing and a time for stress at the mall.  In the end, I do not control anything except my choice to be grateful for my life and my choice to trust You as Lord of it all. I am reminded of  the prayer of another person who prayed with his fingers, albeit not on a computer:

Dear God,

I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But, I believe this:  I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. I hope I have that desire in everything I do. I hope I never do anything apart from that desire. And, I know that if I do this You will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it at the time.  Therefore, I will trust You always for though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not be afraid because I know You will never leave me to face my troubles all alone.

Amen—Thomas Merton