I don't really know why I am writing today. There is no real discontentment or triumph that I feel like sharing, nor did you need to know that... But alas, here I am, and there you are.
What do prayers mean to you? You know, I can't really bring myself to pray for outcomes. There are so many factors that collide and bounce off of one another in each and every day of my life. I can't kid myself, or God for that matter, and pretend that I have a good suggestion as to how these factors should bounce off one another. I was horrible at physics in high school.
Usually a prayer is, to me, pounding the pavement. Earbuds in the ears, hands in the pockets, and my well-worn New Balance sneakers plodding along some puddily Provo excuse for a sidewalk. I think about my life, the gift that everything is, and above all I have a hope in my heart: that everything will turn out for the best.
It's the most earnest, honest prayer I can give. Oh, and there is always one pet blessing that I dare ask for... and that's the request the I be happy while I'm sorting through this beautiful mess.
I have this image in my head, a tableau that popped into my head when I was reading Russian literature a year ago. She's an old woman with a wizened, wrinkled face shrouded and draped in a gray and tattered thing. She is sitting on a stone, rocking an infant-sized stone as if to put it to sleep.
She sings to it, and it comes to life. A form of a little child, gurgling and laughing happily. The old woman rocks the image, laughs with it, makes faces with it and loves it.
I assume when the old woman goes home, she ends her enchantment and places the lifeless little stone where she found it. I imagine her coming back daily to the place where a little trick provides her infinite happiness.
I don't know why I shared that, or what exactly it means. It makes me a bit melancholy, really. Is she wrong for loving something that isn't real? She could be neglecting more real and alive people. Or, is she right for reveling in a dream? Is she creating her own beauty in a life that sees very little beauty outside her own? Maybe it's both; these options I just thought of aren't mutually exclusive.
Ha! Maybe these thoughts reflect me :) Hopefully they have amused you!
