The other day, I'd had about enough of all the weights of daily life. I needed to clear my head.
So I went to the "head clearing clinic" that has become my go-to spots in these moments over recent months. I had no intention to bring my phone, so I don't have a visual record of this spot. Nor, for that matter, do I really intend to describe it. Just know it's that spot that over recent months has been the place to which I retreat when my heart is too heavy.
I've often wondered about what it means to "clear the head", and whether prayer is a way of doing that. If what is meant is a recovery of focus, a centering of attention, a reboot of the inner hard drive, then yes, prayer does that.
Much of my life in 2019 has been lived in the interrogative mood: Why? What if? How?
I know those deepest questions are unanswerable. But that doesn't excuse the urgency in asking them. So my "head clearing clinic" is a spiritual place -- a place where heaven touches earth. It's a place where, whatever the questions, I feel keenly the love of God's good gifts in the world.
There are moments when the sounds of this place become their own prayers. There are moments when my own prayers are nothing more than tears or cries or even inner screams. Sometimes, somewhere, hidden in those near-silences, there's space for questions to become prayers which may not have any answer other than that your love and loss are known, and held in the heart of God. Most times, that's answer enough. No experience in life has more profoundly changed the way I think about prayer, God, love, faith and hope than living in 2019.
Life has had a diminished quality to it, reduced in possibility, and requiring to be lived with gratitude tempered by grief. That's not a complaint. It's a recognition, that much of the journey is behind me, and there are still horizons ahead. In that place, when my head is cleared by the sights and sounds of that place, prayers happen. Most often prayers of the Spirit for me.
So I went to the "head clearing clinic" that has become my go-to spots in these moments over recent months. I had no intention to bring my phone, so I don't have a visual record of this spot. Nor, for that matter, do I really intend to describe it. Just know it's that spot that over recent months has been the place to which I retreat when my heart is too heavy.
I've often wondered about what it means to "clear the head", and whether prayer is a way of doing that. If what is meant is a recovery of focus, a centering of attention, a reboot of the inner hard drive, then yes, prayer does that.
Much of my life in 2019 has been lived in the interrogative mood: Why? What if? How?
I know those deepest questions are unanswerable. But that doesn't excuse the urgency in asking them. So my "head clearing clinic" is a spiritual place -- a place where heaven touches earth. It's a place where, whatever the questions, I feel keenly the love of God's good gifts in the world.
There are moments when the sounds of this place become their own prayers. There are moments when my own prayers are nothing more than tears or cries or even inner screams. Sometimes, somewhere, hidden in those near-silences, there's space for questions to become prayers which may not have any answer other than that your love and loss are known, and held in the heart of God. Most times, that's answer enough. No experience in life has more profoundly changed the way I think about prayer, God, love, faith and hope than living in 2019.
Life has had a diminished quality to it, reduced in possibility, and requiring to be lived with gratitude tempered by grief. That's not a complaint. It's a recognition, that much of the journey is behind me, and there are still horizons ahead. In that place, when my head is cleared by the sights and sounds of that place, prayers happen. Most often prayers of the Spirit for me.