2022-11-05 A Prayer: Facing Hard Truths

O Lord, humor and indulge our baser frights. O God, we speak of pleasant affections whether brotherly or neighborly, as though all people were beholden to a positive logic and an affectionate desire towards each other. But then we encounter the unmentionable: our own laziness, or dismissive attitude towards ones who have come across our threshold. Our doorway seemed open, but then we were dealt a stark hand, and a hand we pray You do curate and ameliorate with Positivity.

We languish. We can only face the music if held firmly from above. That music is frightening, or rather, wearying; it is a wearying back-and-forth in our hearts, hearts so grateful for the positivity and healthsome outlook, but also finding the pendulum swings the other way. Curate those hours into hours of hope, we pray, for man is judged.

O Lord, if it be so, then heal us. If it be so, that common goodness is absent, others simply not liking us or wishing ill as a matter of course, as opposed to that good will where we live as though with happy blinders on. If it be so, that some disturbed vision in fact is the truth… Lord, all people have their own brand of cynicism, and we plead as those startled yet held, for You are greater and somehow give hope amidst hard turns, dire straits, some things we just can’t quite handle.

We worship now because it is miracle and affirming, Your care for a blighted people like ourselves. O God, it is flagrant. We, in stark honesty, see hate and impatience, entitled impatience. Remind us of better times and good gestures towards one’s fellow man. Heal us to abide close to You. See us crumpled at the stark vision or reality, but return us to those warmer climes, living out not an illusion but a gentler way, a way intending to give thanks unto You for so loving us. When we forget, forgive us. For You have over abundantly dealt love into our lives, too, and that despite our rebellion.

See us peace with that cynic and that would-be reformer of morals, rather, reformer of affections; see others, out of a sinister place, inspired, begin to speak hushedly yet boldly, with purpose, determined to let love triumph, even if it seems to our fledgling ears to be odd; we distance and evade some encounters with love, and apologize.

Grant us to see the facts of hate, but also to live in some place hopeful: hope triumphing, even if the details are being worked out in eternity. We are fools but built up, for our mechanisms will be further educated by You in the time that follows. We are unashamed to be fools and those at cross-currents with accepted wisdom and the status quo. For, how did we begin? That this status quo is not aware of deeper facts. As those who are aware, we make a strange alliance with Your Heavenly Spirit above.

We pray all this in Your Name, Amen.