I love her writing, which tends to be simple, direct and memorable. Here is her recently published essay, "Leaving It Up to God, Now" for the Quaker newsletter "What Canst Thou Say?". Following the article is a poem of hers, "Peace Prayer: A Bowl".
Leaving it up to God, now
My mother taught me to say grace at mealtimes and bedtime prayers and blessings ("God bless Mommy and Daddy and Dennis.") at each day's end. I went to a religious school where memory classes taught more rote prayers. And in church, each week the pastor would pray, on behalf of all members of the congregation, the prayer specified in his liturgical calendar.
We were also taught that we could pray for what we wanted, such as, "Please, God, make my parents give me a kitten," or, "Please make the sun shine on Saturday so we can go to the beach."
I found these types of prayer satisfying for a long time. My bedtime prayers brought a sense of completion to the day, and saying grace at meals just seemed right. Hallelujahs and prayers of praise filled me with joy and reverence.
But as I grew older, awareness grew in me that the pastor's prayers very rarely had to do with current world or local issues or with my own personal life. Instead, a very strong emphasis was put on how sinful we are and how we can never be good enough to deserve God's love. Most of our prayer was based on fear, consisting of asking for forgiveness, begging for God's mercy.
Gradually, I stopped seeing God as an old man in the sky, granting wishes or meting punishments at whim. I gave up trying to understand God's nature because I don't believe I will ever have the capacity to understand the magnitude, the complexity, of the God force.
The nature of my prayers changed when I began to realize that I had neither God's breadth of understanding nor any faultless solutions for life's problems. I have come to see prayers of praise as uplifting for me, but not something that God needs. My petitionary prayer is for strength, wisdom, understanding, or compassion. I pray that God will show me how to live in love and with trust, and I try to remain open to God's will.
If someone is in need, I don't ask for a particular outcome, but for the best solution, as seen from an eternal point of view. I try to join in God's love for that person. In silence, I send good thoughts and love to that individual. Sometimes I perform tonglin, the Buddhist practice of breathing in their pain, breathing out lovingkindness and compassion.
Meditation, practicing gratitude and acceptance have made me feel more at peace with God, life, and my small role in the whole scheme of things. I am not afraid (except when I'm near a cliff's edge). I don't need to have the answers and I don't need to tell God how to operate. Isn't that lucky?
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Peace Prayer: A Bowl
May I live as an open bowl:
When empty, to receive gratefully
whatever I'm given.
When full, to hold gently;
to offer all I have
knowing I will be filled again.
