2024 a year of sacred memory, dreaming dragons, and original prayer

Week 36--in which we pray because we don't know what else to do

Friends, soul writers, mystics, witches, and lovers of prayer,

The world is aflame with sorrow. It seems everywhere we look we see tragedy. Gaza. The West Bank. Ukraine. Darfur. Floods. Fires. The heart thinks it can’t absorb anything more.

But more comes.

Danie Franco photographer Unsplash

Here in the United States, we are enduring yet another mass shooting at a school. And yet another round of “thoughts and prayers.”

I loathe hearing politicians talking about “thoughts and prayers,” when in truth their thoughts are not of gun control and safety for all. And their prayers? As someone who has spent six years reinvigorating and redefining prayer, someone who madly loves real prayer, I will not even use that word to describe whatever those politicians might be doing. They have no right to put that word in their mouths.

And so, what do we do? Well, here in the US, we can vote. For sure. But what about right now, this moment. This tear-stained moment.

Maybe this prayer will help. It is the very first prayer that arrived with prayer artist.

I heard prayer artist whispered in the night of February 24, 2018. It scared me. What is a prayer artist? Not only did I not know, no one did. I turned to google for guidance. If prayer artist was a thing, I knew there would be hundreds, probably thousands, of searches for it.

So I opened my computer and typed in prayer artist. And nothing happened. Nothing happened. Not a single search for prayer artist. I sat here. Staring at the screen. This couldn’t be possible.

There were plenty of searches to learn to pray. Catholic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim. Tens of thousands of organizations delighted to teach you HOW to pray.  And there were a few dozen searches for prayers for artists.

But nothing that could tell me anything about how to be this thing, this thing called a prayer artist.

So I had to find my own way. And my way is always dialogue with my beloved divine voice, Sophia. So I picked up a pen. But before I could formulate a thought, this that came bursting out of my hand was:

I do not know what this means. And I’m pretty sure it changes everything. But if you want me to be your prayer artist, I will be your prayer artist.

Instantly words began to flow. But instead of giving me any guidance or instructions or insight, the words were an actual prayer. My first prayer as a prayer artist. I had to write fast to keep up. But I got it all down. When the final line came, I sat there, staring at the journal on my lap for quite a while.

I knew I didn’t write this prayer. I could never have written something so gorgeous. I didn’t know anything more about being a prayer artist. Only that I was. A prayer artist. And sure enough, prayer artist has changed everything. Everything.

So today perhaps the best thing I can give you and the world is this prayer.

Say it aloud. Say it for the children and teachers who were murdered on the first day of school in Georgia. Say it for the children in Gaza who will never go to school again. Say it for the Israeli hostages who will never come home. The families whose homes are bombed in Ukraine. The starving in Darfur.

Say it for all who are frightened. Sick. Worried. Afraid. Say it for me. Say it for yourself. Say it for us. For us. For all of us.

Sometimes I Pray

©Janet Conner, 2018
Sometimes I pray WITH you

side-by-side, body-to-body, heat-to-heat
our prayers mingling like smoke
rising into the sky, going who knows where

Sometimes I pray FOR you

holding you up to the Queen of Love
asking you be cleansed, purified,
and transmuted into a living pathway of love

Sometimes I pray BESIDE you

not knowing who you are
or what you’re praying
or where or when or even how
but praying beside you anyway—
two hearts that might never meet
but recognize one another somehow

Sometimes I pray AROUND you

circling your pain
circling your confusion
circling your anger and your sobs

I chant mysterious songs
and sway to secret beats
trusting the words and rhythms
to wrap you in their sacred healing cloth

I hope the colors penetrate your skin
I hope the sounds massage your aching heart

Maybe nothing happens
Maybe everything happens

I don’t know, but
I pray around you anyway

Sometimes I pray IN you

I’m not sure how this happens
When did I enter your heart?
When did you enter mine?

But sometimes I am in you and you are in me
and together we create a prayer neither of us knew before—a prayer we might never be able to replicate again

It’s the moment, this moment
and in this moment we are one spirit, you and I—
one heart, one being, remembering who we really are

Sometimes my prayers are potent
Sometimes my prayers are dust
Sometimes my prayers are fearless
Sometimes just whimpers in the night

Sometimes they dissolve into weeping
Sometimes they morph into song
Sometimes they send me dancing
Sometimes they cut me cold

Sometimes I know I’m praying
Often I do not

Is this a prayer?
Or is this a life?

Or are they the same thing?

to remembering to pray

Janet

website: janetconner.com

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