The following prayer was taken from my book “40 Days of Hopeful Prayer”

In the world of crazy things, I sometimes think that the wildest thing of all is that I believe that You, Oh God, are looking over us all, in us all, and with us all.  It seems so unfathomable, so unconscionable, that You are all that there is to be.  Maybe it is because of the enormity of the leap of faith that I have attempted to take, that in response I often expect to see blinding, awe-inducing shows, ones that proclaim a declaration for even the ardent of doubters, for the most stubborn of nonbelievers.  Or maybe it is that like everything else in my life, I simply expect to see what is real, to touch what is true, to hear what is awake.

Or maybe I am just missing the point.

Because the more I think about it, the more it seems that the things that really create change, the things that really cause mountaintops to crumble, or beings to live, are the things that I cannot see at all.  I marvel at the helicopter lifting so elegantly in the sky, only to realize that the wind that carries it upward is hidden from my view.  I am amazed at the hand that majestically strokes the keys, only to surmise that the neurons that lead its lyrical poem are hidden from view.  I stare in awe as the rushing stream carves its way through rocks, only to know that both the source of the river and the elements that compose it are not accessible to me.  I am reminded that everything that seems so real is only so because of what is not real to me.

If that is true, then what about us?  If all I can see is the worn face of a lifetime of poverty, am I missing the resolve to withstand it?  If all I hear is the voice that speaks out against an atrocity, am I missing the passion that drives it?   If all I know is the body that overcomes miles upon miles of strain, then I must be missing the determination that sustains it.  And if all I know in myself are the mistakes that I have made, then I must be ignoring the belief that I will learn from their trail. 

Maybe, then, the craziest thing is to only believe in what is self-evident.  Instead of wondering how I can ever fully commit myself to something so mysterious, so amorphous, so ill-defined, I might contemplate how I ever would have lived in a world so long without embracing that which requires faith.  Lord, in my weakest of moments, I must admit that I wish You were as real as the ring on my finger, so that my leap would not have to be so far and seem so daunting.  And yet I know that as the ring begins to wear, and the shine begins to dull, the bond it represents is not destined to lose its brilliance or erode over time. I guess I like the way You are after all.  So, if You must be anything, would You be my current so that I may run true? Be my roots that I may stand strong? Be my perseverance that I may never give up?  But, most of all, would You be my unknown, so that I may never have to go in search of a shape or a sound, but remain steadfast in my journey for a heaven on high. 

Amen.