The First Prayer for the Tenth Chapter

I am unsure where to begin because I have been homeless for years. As the text for today suggests, I need to come home to myself. However, my culture and branch of religious tradition have under-equipped me. There is a prevailing emphasis on striving, which unsurprisingly leads to strife. There is an insistence that I be tied into a great tradition of Promised Lands, longed-for places that can never be reached and ultimately never could exist. People pressure me to acknowledge a first covenant and then a second, to either be a follower or a replacement in the tradition of grasping; I refuse. Today, I want to take Christ as the starting point, not the resolution. There is no dead-Jesus in my tomb and the living Jesus will be my first guide. “Love the Lord God with all your mind, heart, and spirit and love your neighbor as yourself – on this hangs all the law and the prophets.” There is my mantra.

Make the spot of Earth I sit upon to be Holy and Home to me, all-touching God. Bookend my struggles of ten years gone by – sequester them and grant me the freedom to move on toward a new home. Help me to see the beauty left in this fading planet and perhaps, from the peace You grant, give me a portion to pour out into the world. First, take me up onto the metaphorical mountain to be instructed. Replace my striving for achievement with a diligent practice. My fondest wish is that I can be separated from my history at last and move into the further reaches of my life with a renewed sense of childhood. Every time I take a deep breath to push away something bitter, I see the joy of living in defiance of existing so wretchedly. Give me no promise but your Presence, even if I feel a deficit at first. I feel that I also have a passionate side, that this is natural for me, that I have fires to be kindled, but take me instead into my snows. Take me first into my rest and make me at home so that I quit my pushing and pulling. I have not transcended my feelings yet so I pray you would sit with me and teach me that meditation is more than suppression – that meditation is always the opposite of suppression. It is a vacuum that draws in – first the terrible stenches and then the fresh-air. It draws in my dust, first, and then flower petals.

I digress. Bring me home,

In All Your Powerful, Serene Names, please...

-Daniel Xavier