the five, or more often ten, minutes i spend in the shower alone
always seem to start off with me looking up beyond the shower head
to some indeterminate space between me and the floor above.
i don't know what i say, exactly. i don't think i ever even finish a thought,
but i always seem to send a few silent words
in the pointed direction of god as the water starts pouring on my head.
the prayer emerges in the shape of big and full words
that are drawn out, rounded and whispered into the sudden listening stillness of my inner monologue.
i say maybe just a phrase or two what is weighing down on me at most
and then i'm off to complete the usual showerly tasks of soaping, rinsing,
standing under the stream of water as hot as i can stand it and letting my body release itself.
1 comment:
I find that I often pray in the shower too. And many of my prayers are not in words but simply a vague idea of kindness sometimes with a direction and sometimes not.
I'll always remember two quotes about prayer in general though:
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "Thank You", that would suffice.
Meister Eckhart as quoted in A Bucket of Surprises (2002) by J. John and Mark Stibbe.
The other is, "In all the world there are only four prayers: Gimme, Oops, Thank you, and Wow" From an article by Rabbi Marc Gellman over at newsweek (but I can never find it when I try).
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