Where Power Ends and Prayer Begins

 

                                                                                                                Image: Shane Guffogg: At the Still Point

I intentionally wrote this yesterday evening before there was any news of the presidential vote. I did so because I felt there was something I was learning, beholding, which transcended the anxiety and even the results either way. I was learning to pray. And I was learning that in that holy space in time there is mercy and justice for all. It is more than just a dream though it is that too. It is an experience of being not of this world and of a realm where all tears are wiped away.

Rabbi Heschel said: Prayer begins where our power ends. We tend to shy away from that precipice. That ledge where our power ends seems to be marked off in police tape or bright orange cones. Nevertheless, I ventured there and it made all the difference. 

I have never felt the powerlessness of the last few months which, in the last few days, had triggered an obsessive chicken little response. Something seemed to scream into my life to cease and pray. In so doing I found a peace and freedom which may not last, in fact may be gone as this is sent, but which sustained and “held” as the still point of the turning world. And the thing is the still point may not be coextensive with a geometric center! I now have some prayer muscle memory to practice, not to mention balancing in the midst of chaos.