Of all the things that are hard to write about, this is one of them. It is so intimate, so private. I bring it up because there is a connection between it and writing. I’m going to say that prayer is the movement of the heart towards Mystery. Mystery can encompass a personal, loving Someone, but it need not. I define prayer broadly so as to include as much as possible. Prayer flings you out in hope and roots you down in presence. In some form or another, conscious or unconscious, it is part of writing. I don’t know what else to call this reaching out to the unknown. I don’t know why anyone would do it except as some form of prayer. This filling in and emptying out, what else can it be? We think of the word “consecrate” as a religious term and so it is, but it is religious in a human sense, a universal sense. We consecrate, we make sacred, what we carve out of our daily hours for another’s sake. The sacred is hollowed out by intention and attention. Who do you write for? And in your heart of hearts you know that what you do is always a response. Why this sense that someone calls? Where does it come from? Then there is this: the writing itself is a search for some unknown that you never reach. There are discoveries along the way, but still, you never get there. You walk in darkness, one word at a time. Somehow you trust in a meaning you do not yet see. You have faith that it is all worthwhile. Because what else can you do? The work is your prayer.
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