The Stark Presence of God: A Working Prayer

Sometimes I ask you to bring the calm in a series of waves, a slow lapping onto the shore of my being.

But today, I ask for an avalanche, a blanket of snow that pummels me with the kind and powerful essence of exactly who You are and who You’re calling me to be.

I’ve got no words to bring me in, no prose to call my mind to the quiet place where I find you.

I am in a busy place where voices and music and coffee cup clanks echo off the pale blue walls.

So I need the loudness of You.

I need the clarity, the starkness.

I need to be moved ahead, to be plowed through into this new year that is creeping in a bit too slowly.

The holidays are over for us, and we walk back into the work-life-family-marriage-sanity-peace-of-mind balance, and since it’s coming, we’re all the more desperate.

So pour Yourself forth, we beg, and when we forget, pour more.

You tell us to remain in the vine, so here I am, holding on for dear life to Your source.

Hold me back, please.

And while I fill my empty tank with the caffeine boost of a vanilla latte, my soul stirs and asks and receives, all at once in all those most desperate ways.

And if I’m careful enough to catch it, I realize that this is everyday, in all things. This is the reality of who You are in me and around me.

Be the stillness when I am too loud.

Be the boldness when I am too timid.

Be the patience when I’m shaking myself into fits.

Be the kindness to my hatred.

Be the voice when I’m wordless.

Be the Spirit in my void.

Be the King of my tiny kingdom.

And usher me, usher me back and back and back again to you.

Hallelujah and Amen.