hear me quickly
- Anne Catlin
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
I'm not into organized religion or basically anything that has a man standing between me and God, but I'm tight with God. It took a LONG TIME. After all that Catholic School indoctrination I really couldn't even say the word without feeling grossed out. Eventually I was able to come around to my own understanding of things, something more direct, the afterlife and the universe and my place in it (a speck in the infinite and unknowable magic of things with love as my guiding principle).
That said, I really dig a good prayer --- the fall on your face kind like Rumi's ecstatic love. Just surrender and gratitude basically. Not so much begging. So here's one for this morning that came up at random. It's one of my favorite writers, Ted Loder, a methodist pastor who had a certain way with words I've come to appreciate. Replace the word God with whatever suits your fancy.
Hear Me Quickly, Lord | Ted Loder
Hear me quickly Lord for my mind soon wanders to other things
I am more familiar with and more concerned about than I am with you.
O Timeless God, for whom I do not have time, catch me with a sudden stab of beauty or pain or regret that will catch me up short for a moment to look hard enough at myself –
the unutterable terror and hope within me – and, so, to be caught by you.
Words will not do, Lord. Listen to my tears, for I have lost much and fear more.
Listen to my sweat, for I wake at night overwhelmed by darkness and strange dreams.
Listen to my sighs, for my longing surges like the sea – urgent, mysterious, beckoning.
Listen to my heart beat, for I want to live fully and stay death forever.
Listen to my breathing, for I gulp after something like holiness.
Listen to my clenched teeth, for I gnaw at my grudges and forgive myself as reluctantly as I forgive others.
Listen to my growling gut, for I hunger for bread and intimacy.
Listen to my curses, for I am angry at the way the world comes down on me sometimes and I sometimes on it.
Listen to my cracking knuckles, for I hold very tightly to myself and anxiously squeeze myself into others’ expectations, and them into mine, and then shake my fists at you for disappointing me.
Listen to my footfalls, for I stumble to bring good tidings to someone.
Listen to my groans, for I ache toward healing.
Listen to my worried weariness, for my work matters much to me and needs help.
Listen to my tension, for I stretch toward accepting who I am and who I cannot be. Listen to my hunched back, for sometimes I can’t bear the needs and demands of the world anymore and want to put it down, give it back to you.
Listen to my laughter, for there are friends and mercy and the day grows longer, and something urges me to thank.
Listen to my humming, for sometimes I catch all unaware the rhythms of creation and then music without words rises in me to meet it, and there is the joy of romping children and dancing angels.
Listen to my blinking eyes, for at certain moments when sunlight strikes just right, or stars pierce the darkness just enough, or clouds roll around just so, or snow kisses the earth into quietness, everything is suddenly transparent, and crows announce the presence of another world, and dogs bark at it, and something in me is pure enough for an instant to see your kingdom in a glance, and so to praise you in a gasp – quick, then gone, but it is enough.
Listen to me quickly, Lord.
Progress was made today between John and I, and it was based in love.
