Prayers for when you can’t find kind words
There’s an old-school teaching that the more spiritual power you have (or want, or end up with), the more careful you have to be with your words. The Buddhist eight-fold path includes right speech, and the Vedic ahimsa — non-violence — includes deeds, words, and thoughts. What you say or think carries more weight as you walk your path and take on more responsibility. It’s like using a scalpel: precision really matters. Will you wield it to help or to hurt?
If we believe in the power of words to transmit ideas and shape cultures, to connect or separate with others, to make manifest something that before was abstract, then it follows we have to believe in the power of words to bless or to curse. Same mechanism, different intentions.
I pray twice a day, sometimes more. It’s not a folded-hands Bible verse sort of prayer — it’s more of a “hey Sacred Everybodies, I know you’re there and I’m grateful. Here’s what I’m thinking about.” Prayer anchors me in the reality of connection, reminds me that I exist because of the lives of others and some kind of mystical magic I can’t begin to comprehend. I’m interwoven into Creation and prayer is the acknowledgement of that mystery, a prompt I tend to need in the midst of our wacky polycrisis.
I’ve been mad and scared and sort of side-eye disappointed these past few weeks. I haven’t…
