Prayer for Me

This is the first version of a daily prayer I just wrote. I felt the need to have some extra consistency of zeal and spirit in my life. It's so easy for emotions to take you down to a level of laziness and procrastination, especially when you don't have a boss or a coach to slap your ass into gear. I needed a series of words that spoke to my deepest self and could wake me up when I'm asleep at the wheel.

I'm not religious by any means. I suppose that if I had to label it, the prayer would be agnostic, or even just philosophical, Taoist. This is a personal prayer. It's what I wanted and needed to help me better my life and reach for greater things.

People who hold on to the belief in a God seem to do so out of a need to just carry on. I understand this need to carry on and carry through, of course; it is a need indeed. However, I do not believe in a God with a face. I feel that I can not for long kid myself into thinking there is a God, at least not one who has a gender or a plan, or that, if there is a plan, I could read about it somewhere. I don't even really know what the government's plans are, and that is here on earth! Trust me, I've tried to believe.

I do believe that there is a Source, however inconceivable. I feel no need to add a face or form to the Source. Also, I believe there is always a deeper Source. And a deeper Source still. There can not be a Source of all Sources. It goes on forever. That idea, the idea that I have no idea, that the universe is forever a mystery, grips my soul like no other. It's an idea that takes charge. It takes courage for me to never give a face or image to the Source. I like things that take courage.

I want to be clear that I don't have it all figured out. That's exactly what I'm saying.... This prayer is out of an effort to do my best... to take a stab at it. I've made the effort to make the wisdom universal and timeless while also applying to my life specifically. It's a custom prayer, like a car out of the shop. However if you feel the desire to say the prayer to yourself, it will probably apply. But regardless I encourage you to take the prayer for yourself and change it a little, or a lot, or completely.

In the prayer, it seems that I am giving this mysterious Source power over me be saying things like, "Please allow me to walk with balance and serenity"... I do this because I know that I am human, and really, I'm a child in many ways. This is a way for me to play pretend with myself. It's like the idea of an artist communicating to his or her muse or genius as a separate entity which comes of it's own volition like wind and hits only those who are receptive. I know that I'm crazy, but it helps a little to pretend that I'm talking to an outside Source. It helps me to remember that I'm not in complete control of my life. That's a lot of pressure. This prayer is a humble attempt to ask Dad for the keys, to cast my vote into the abyss like a message in a bottle that I throw as far as I can into the ocean everyday.

It certainly effects my life in a stronger way to imagine something unimaginable than does any laying of hands or kneeling by a bedside talking in a specific upwards direction to someone with a specific face that someone showed me in a specific book that someone else wrote and illustrated. What do they know about the Great Source? Nothing, as far as I'm concerned. I also know nothing. I say, lets clear the slate.

Finally, I mentioned before that I don't believe that there is one final Source from which all things come because there must be a greater Source still. In the prayer, I say, "The Great Source," which makes it seem that I'm contradicting myself. I want to be clear that it was the first thing that I came up with. It is also my belief that words will always limit us. So, for the reader's sake, "The Great Source" refers to an ever-moving, ever-changing, formless space-less non-place of non-existence. Are you having trouble imagining the Great Source? Me too. That's the whole idea.

So, this is my prayer as I have written it so far. Remember, it's custom, so I can take it "back to the shop" anytime. I hope that you feel something in this prayer and that you might take my suggestion to revise a prayer for yourself, if it helps you. If it doesn't, that's cool too.

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Great Source, please allow me to walk with balance and serenity.
I am a human whose limits are great but unknown.
I stretch myself each day to make unknown limits knowable.
The strength to take the next best step is endless, though I will often feel blind to it's presence.
I have the right to work and not be distracted by the 83 problems and that attempt to haunt me.
I will take care of myself so that I may take care of others,
Not for fame. Not for abundance that can be counted in dollars.
I will walk not proud nor abject but with the balance and self-renewing strength which gets me through this day and the next.
I will work today to the extent that I may still work tomorrow.
Everyday, I will come to terms with being alone so I may do my work.
I will not put off until tomorrow that which may as well be done today.
Pain should not be unusual; it is a by-product of life and hopefully progress.
Intense fear only indicates what I must face next.
Please allow me to walk with balance and serenity.
Help me put that which is important over that which is urgent.
Help me see that optimism is realism.
Please allow me to smile often and sincerely.
Great Source, please allow me to walk with balance and serenity.
Thank you.