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WINTER
2000 George A. Crispin
Woodbury MM
Like most people I get up workday mornings, try to beautify myself, dress, and go off to my day’s labor. To get there I travel the same road, day after day, my vehicle knows the way. It is habit and early in the morning, so it requires minimal concentration, barring notice of other traffic, slippery sections in the road, and dangerous intersections. Thus, my mind has time to roam without the usual interruptions and distractions. I play soft, melodic nature music, which has replaced the more jangling and upsetting news programs. Talk shows are the worst. Though often stimulating, they too often find me at my destination full of conflict. Nature music affords me a calm interior with which to face the day before me.
One morning several years ago I was overcome by the majestic beauty of the beginning day. It was truly like a birth. The sun burst across the horizon filling the sky with a golden glow tinted at the edges with rose that blended gradually into purple. It was a masterpiece of artistry beyond what any earthy painter could put on canvass. All of the earth around me seemed to respond to the life-giving light from above. The flowers stood straight and waved in the breeze as if in salute to the unfolding, surrounding beauty. The air had just enough chill that upon inhaling an awakening wave passed through the body, an energizing pulse reminiscent of one’s alive state and the potential we possess. I had seen awe-inspiring mornings before, but for some reason this morning I was particularly receptive to the grandeur of this special radiant act of creation.
Spontaneously I spoke aloud: “God, you outdid yourself this time. What a morning!” Then, the response came back: “Thank you.”
Let me confess at the beginning that I am hard-nosed about religious matters and I think religion is full of self-deceptions. People make claims about hearing all kinds of things, sometimes with extremely destructive results. On the other hand, if God can create a morning such as that one, He can also talk to me. Was it an external God? Was it really me talking to myself? Was this voice the voice of my Higher Self? Does our Higher Self merge with a Cosmic Consciousness? I am not prepared, as yet, to answer these questions. Maybe I never will be. Maybe they are unanswerable. What I do know is that this splendid morning was intensely inspiring, and that was good. I also know that I was uplifted to an enormous sense of appreciation, and that was good. I know that a voice, perhaps my own, said, “Thank you,” and that was good.
My prayer history has been sporadic. My mother started me with, “Now I lay me down to sleep. ...” As a teenager I prayed for things I wanted. I still do. At least now those things are a bit less self-centered, like for someone to be healed, or for saving the environment, and I end with, “Nonetheless, your will be done.” For a long time I believed that there could be very little God would want to hear from me. He knew everything anyhow, so why tell Him want He already knew? Then for decades I just listened.
Somehow that overwhelmingly beautiful morning inspired me to a new level. To be thankful, or to pray that God’s loving light will cover someone in need, may or may not affect God who is all powerful anyway and knows what to do. But it does affect us. Over the succeeding weeks, months, that have now turned into years, I have found a new level of prayer, higher, richer, a step for me. My daily trek to work in the morning I call my Prayer Road. During that time I express, whether in words or feelings, my life-filling gratitude for the life we are given, for the opportunities we are presented, for the potential we possess, for our loved ones, our communities, the life we live. I ask that those who are in need are covered with love, with light, with compassion. I invite that the latent goodness in all events will emerge. I cannot say with certainty that there is a God who hears all of this, but I do hear it. Its impact on me has been for the better. To ask for someone’s healing is make us more compassionate. To ask for the good in an event to emerge is to work harder for that to happen. To ask for blessings for the dead is to focus upon them with respect. To ask that one’s steps throughout the day be guided and inspired is to walk that day with a higher deliberation and dedication. My morning trips have become my Prayer Road, an elevated consciousness for the Higher Self to bloom. Perhaps God hears as well.
Most of us have a prayer history. Most of us struggle with finding the right prayers, the right place, the rights words. Like most religious matters, finding our way is not always easy. Perhaps all of us have a Prayer Road. Perhaps for some it is yet to be found. It may not be during travel to work. It may not be in a house of worship. It may be during housework, or while jogging, or in the shower. But it can become your Prayer Road, a time for your Higher Self to grow. And, perhaps most of all, maybe there really is a God, far beyond what our mortal minds can grasp, and our mere human expressions of gratitude and hope really do matter.
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Last modified:
Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
