The Almost-Prayer of a Name

There is a certain way a child can carry on that simply *sends* a person. At least me.

This morning I feel tense from my toes on up. My Littlest has been doing *that* kind of carrying on. I am having minor fantasies of a spa with Japanese music and tropical drinks. Sighs :). Instead, I walk past Ann's book, and the calm fragility of the nest, the blue eggs, the hands extended, call to me.

I open pages to October rains, clothespins dripping grace, and I feel more like a wet puppy scratching at the back door, than a woman who is all eyes for the beautiful.

These words sit quiet on the page...

I am blessed.
I can bless.
So this is happiness.

Ann connects this almost-prayer to her name, which means "full of grace." And I stop. What is the meaning of my own name?

Barkat means blessing.

It is easier to bless in the *big* moments— money to missions, the cup of cold water to a man in Grand Central Station. Where I find it harder is right here, where the life-nest feels fragile and a voice has been grating. And a little child is —like me— growing her way towards this almost-prayer...

I am blessed.
I can bless.
So this is happiness.

___

Quote from Chapter 10 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

Whimsy at My Feet

Did I tell you about my purple toe nails?

I painted them dark pearly purple.

When I kick off my slippers at night, I swing my feet at the edge of the bed. And I look at my whimsical purple nails.

Cameron says that when we go through The Artist's Way, we'll see changes in ourselves. We might clean out our closets (hey, I did that already! How did she know?) Still, she forgot to tell me about the nail polish. I am SO not a nail polish kind of girl. But this seemed right. A private indulgence. An odd beauty, like keeping irises in the closet and not caring that no one can see them.

Is this why God made iridescent sea creatures that creep around the ocean floor, making the dark beautiful to no one in particular? If God were a girl like me, sitting at the edge of the bed, would God choose a lick of purple polish too?


Candles at 56 Irving Place photo by L.L. Barkat.

Scattered Thoughts on Spiritual Practice

So many things to write, talks coming up. Every day now I must devote myself to thinking on these things. I do some of my best thinking "out loud", and that's why I'm here. I hope you don't mind.

As of yesterday I was given an assignment to talk about beauty. It doesn't seem to fit with any of the other eight talks I have to deliver. I've been fussing with it.

This morning I woke thinking about the last words I typed in last night...

Beauty has a shape. It is dimensional.

I don't know what that means. Except it somehow fits with a conversation I had with a friend, about what prayer looks like. I said I think prayer isn't just sitting alone in a room, staring at the four walls and saying some kind of obligatory words. I said I think maybe praying could be as simple as this: go on a hike, with a sense of openness and a willingness to compose (think David and his poems) and all of it in a posture of "here I am God."

Prayer has a shape then too, a shape that includes footfalls, rock climbing, touching dirt, maybe picking wildflowers. It's seems to me this is the primary prayer shape recorded from Jesus' life. And he went out into the hills. (that's my paraphrase). There were the Festivals too, great times of prayer and devotion. These were also dimensional (one of my favorites is when they would pour water out of jugs, onto the pavement, for the Feast of Tabernacles).

Have we pared spiritual practice down to a thing we do with pencils and books, barely dimensional? And, as we instinctually know about beauty when it is pressed flatter and flatter, have we lost something vital along the way?