Prayer for the Life's Journey

A prayer I wrote to be read in unison in church, inspired in part by Mark 1:14-20.



O God,

You are not only Parent,
but also Dispatcher, Guide, and Companion.
You have called us into being.
You have called us into becoming.
You have called us to new places and new missions.
We pray that we might be receptive and ready.
We recognize that sometimes
our fear, uncertainty, and pride
can stop us in our tracks
or lead us in the wrong direction.
Please remind us to communicate with You
often along the way:
to speak, and to listen.

Amen.

The Impromptu Travel Companion

As I mentioned in the account about the time that I did not sleep in a ditch, I was, for the most part, a lone traveler.

Until Tim.

Short curly brown hair. Slight space between his two front teeth. Europe Guide Book glued to his hand. Backpack big enough to carry a limp body.

In a nutshell, the antithesis of me with exception to the friendly disposition - friendly enough that the likelihood of him actually carrying a body around seemed fairly low.

I'd taken what might be considered the Incognito Approach to backpacking. I dressed casually in plain prints and colors - minimal logos and lettering - and carried only the bookbag I'd used in high school. In any given place, if I looked enough like I knew where I was (not frequently the case, but nevertheless), I imagine I looked more like a student than a tourist.

And generally, that was more accurate. Between budgeting my trip and realizing that my own priorities tended to be less the museums and attractions than plain people-watching and wandering around town, I spent much more time "playing local" than tourist. True to the guide book in hand, Tim preferred to scope out good restaurants and famous landmarks.

On the other hand, he also liked to scope out the McDonald's in each place he visited, not to eat there but to check the price of a cheeseburger for means of comparison. Apparently you can tell a lot about a city by how much the fast food costs. I was slightly less interested in this undocumented study and slightly more willing to treat it as a scavenger hunt.

There was one thing that Tim and I had in common, though: we had each done the majority of our journey on our own. I'd found that traveling alone seemed more to my benefit than a liability. Not only was I more alert than one may be with a group, but also silent (i.e. less boisterously American), save for the occasional simple phrases to get around. I felt safe on my own.

Theologian Paul Tillich has said that "Language... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone." In between great times of meeting up with friends along the way, I was rather enjoying some glorious solitude.

And as any vacationing being knows, the moment you taste solitude is the moment something or someone stumbles upon your quiet place.

Cue Impromptu Travel Companion. How he went from "fellow tourist" to "impromptu travel companion" is essentially a tale of one man's spontaneous decision to co-opt an acquaintance's plan for a detour through Bologna, Italy, but don't worry, because in the end he turns out not to be a criminal, as far as I know.

So Tim 'n Kim hit the road. Or the train tracks, as the case may be. It might have made for a fun photo in a travel journal or backpackers' catalogue, me with my puny high school backpack and him strapped to that trailblazers' bodybag. It could have doubled as a jetpack if the thing wouldn't weigh him down so much.



On the train, I spent most of the time writing while Tim pored over his traveler's guide book. We were happily quiet company, but all it took for me to miss the glory of solitude was for Tim to ask about what I was writing.

Ain't nobody ask what I'm writing 'less they don't wanna live.

I am not usually what folks would call a "sharer."

I know, strange personality trait for a blogger, but the truth is this: my first blog? I told about three people that it existed. Socially, as do many people, I have very wonderful but very few confidants, which somehow carried over into my willingness to share my writing - even my fiction. In my first (and last) creative writing workshop, I dreaded shopping work, which is oddly a central part of the process.

And one of my college professors once asked, if I wanted to be a writer, why had I never tried to submit any of my work for publication? Was I not even curious? Was it a simple fear of rejection or was it actually that I refused to open up to the point of being a writer who avoided readers?

Blogging (v. 2.0) has actually been a challenge to myself to be more comfortable with articulating the silly and the serious to others; to force myself to complete short pieces of writing meant to be read rather than hoarded. It's taken me a long time to get to this point of openness.

And by all means, I think it's fine for people to be reserved. Privacy and dignity are obviously not shameful, especially in a world of "over-sharing." But some part of me - the part that began AmenAbility, the part that doesn't lose herself in her writing but rather remembers the world as she writes - was ready to be more open to people. And not just as the Giant Ear, a role that I quite like to take on, but also, perhaps, as a Voice.

Why has it been so difficult to embrace that?

So while it was easy to resent the Impromptu Travel Companion for interrupting the glory of solitude and for reminding me that I was the Awkward Loner hovering over a notebook like it might disintegrate if someone else so much as glanced at it, this unusual meeting was also a thought-provoker for me. Made me contemplate why I was so defensive about a fictional story. Because it wasn't already complete? Because it wasn't high quality and it would injure my pride? What, then?

It made me think that maybe, if I pour so much of my being into what I write (yes, even the silly things - especially the silly things), I don't want to wait until I've completed a masterpiece before I'm willing to share my work with other people. I'm all for promoting quality over quantity, but maybe there is something to sharing besides thinking that something is good enough for an audience, that something is done and thus needs no additions or alterations.

My life is thus far unfinished, too, and by no means a work of art. I expect it could use quite a few changes and, I like to think, many additions. It could end tomorrow or it could end years from now - I don't know. But I do know that I don't want to keep life contained and avoid living it with others, either.

So I'll take my chances.

Whatever He Says, It's That One

When my college friends traipsed into the dining hall one night, we wrote our names on slips of paper for the game show staff stationed in the entryway and then sat at a round table not far from the newly erected set. It was Deal or No Deal, a sort of traveling entertainment company that would host the game right there in Bates Common Dining with all but Howie Mandel and the chicks in evening garb.



Students were randomly selected to participate for the chance to win money, gradually eliminating numbered cases holding various amounts. A one-night campus event, you could say it was a limited time offer.

I'd never seen the show - I vaguely remembered that some kids I'd babysat liked it, but they hadn't even watched it while I was with them - so friends filled in the gaps for me when I was confused.

And then my name was called.



The round table of knowledgeable advisors suddenly seemed so very far away.

A few of us were organizing a relief trip to New Orleans at the time, and we'd discussed that if we won something, it would go toward the cause. But I'd imagined that, if any of us were even called, it would at least be someone who knew what they were doing. I tended to figure that my being randomly selected for a guessing game was even less probable than my being purposely selected for a dodgeball team. Either way, I guess it's a bit hit-or-miss. (OK, bad joke, I'm sorry. Please don't throw things at me! Heh.)

I must have looked flustered, but the host was reassuring: this round would be simple. Because we were nearing the end of the event, there would be a few modified rounds for set prize amounts, rather than the whole song and dance.

The host motioned to two cases.

Over his directions, I heard within, "Whatever he says, it's that one."

I glanced at the case closest to me.



What the host was saying finally registered: one of the cases had a card inside with the amount of $50 while the other showed 50 cents. Choosing correctly meant a prize of over a hundred dollars.

"So," he finished, "which case do you think has the amount of 50 cents?"

I pointed.

Anyone who had ever seen me pick out ice cream or decide what to do with the afternoon knew very well that I seemed a little too sure of what I was doing.

In actuality, I can't really say that I was certain. In the fleeting moment of time between standing by the cases and pointing at one, there was literally no deliberation in my mind, yes, but there was also no sense of "I know this." But the funny thing is, in that moment without certainty, I also had no doubt. I simply did not experience either certainty or doubt in the way that I had ever known either one.

And so it is in contemplating my faith - the beliefs upon which so much of myself is grounded, with or without tangible evidence - that I now remember that night.

I don't insist that it was God, though it was hella creepy in the sense that it was so unlike my usual inner thought processes. But of all of the times that I have had the it-doesn't-feel-like-me-thinking-this experience, this one seems among the least "holy." It would be easy enough to say that it was God's will for us to receive that money for our trip, or to shake things up in my faith life in just one more way. But I don't know. I'm grateful, regardless; I just think attributing anything to God is a matter not to be taken lightly. Wherever the words came from, the trip and my deepening faith were what they were, and that seems to suffice for me.

All that said, this spontaneous phrase still intrigues me to this day.

It strikes me that it was so distinctly, "Whatever he says, it's that one" - so unwavering in its basic concept that truth existed and it did not depend on the host or on me.

It also strikes me that it was something of a declaration of that truth, not a command or advice as to what to do. It even came before the man had said what was expected of me.

Sometimes we are spiritually guided or instructed. "Be not afraid."

But other times, I believe we simply hear truth, and we must act on what we have heard.

Not "Pick the one on the left," but "Whatever he says, it's that one." It just is. It just is. So now what?

When we're confronted with unusual proclamations of truth, especially when we don't expect them, perhaps we will need to pause and consider, mull the words over in our minds, discern their truthfulness and only then formulate a response. Or perhaps we will hear it and know what to do with it before we even realize the magnitude of what's happening.

Either way, true Truth seems to wait for no one to tell it that it's true - as though it's comfortable in its own skin. It can be told or heard, mangled or celebrated, denied or upheld. But at times like this I suspect that it isn't our embracing it that makes the Truth true.

A Prayer of Reconciliation

This is the prayer on my lips and fingertips this evening. Sometimes I like writing my prayers before or as I say them because something happens in my hands that quiets the "monkey mind" I can experience when praying the traditional, non-tactile way.

Persistent, redeeming God,
remind me that I am never broken
beyond Your repair;
and that those I love
and those I fail to love
are also within Your healing reach.
Thank You for reconciling us to You
and to one another.
Keep inviting us to participate,
for we ache and yearn
not only to be healed
but to heal.

Amen.