For the living

If my soul has a pelvic bone, prayers push against it. I toss and turn in discomfort, waiting for the signal from beyond that will push them whole from my compassion, that spiritual corollary to the womb. In Hebrew, the word for compassion draws on the word for womb as the source of its meaning. Womb is the root of compassion. What is hard about prayer is that no matter how painful the birthing of newness, healing, life, that comes through one's intercession, there is nothing to hold in one's hands or arms after. Prayer makes the mother only a midwife, pulling and passing life along. But there is also the pushing. And what reward? Whose face is seen at last when prayer comes to fruition?

That final turn, to seek a new face, composes the pivot-point in the dance of prayer, that place where the round is completed and the next round begins. There is no holding but to feel ourselves more ourselves. There is only a fresh perspective on an unchanged face. A clearing of the eyes, a breath too deep, the way tree roots must feel when they have finally split the rock twain and touched rich soil.

When I gave birth, I did not know I was naked. My eyes were closed. I was singing. I was laboring. The child and God and I had work to do, and the joy-rich pain was all I knew. Sequential holy moments. I must sing. I must sing. I must push. I must love.

Too often talk of prayer is tame. Dull. Tired. Dead. There is no casting into the deep. Only regimen and talk. Words or ritual silence. Hands too timid to reach out. No grasping. No struggle. No having to live as full as you can because otherwise you will not survive. No singing because it's the only way you can breathe. No dancing because not to dance would paralyze you. No painting so you can see. No digging. No growing. No first breath. No cutting of the cord. No bursting of the seed pod or warming of the earth. No teeming, aromatic, stinking, perfumed, lovely, oozing life. Without these things one is in hell, friends. If one wishes to pray, it is enough to live fully. The glory of God is man fully alive.*

*St. Irenaeus of Lyon, 2nd C