Maybe it's because the book of the same name has sold so many millions of copies, but I have always found the phrase "everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten" pretty cliche. I also think it's sort of ludicrous. But this morning I found myself on the subway reading this Gregorian chant:
Come Holy Spirit,
Bend what is rigid in me,
Melt what is frozen.
And it resonated deeply with a corner of my soul that has been struggling and fighting and scrabbling and silently screaming lately. And I found myself silently repeating this prayer over and over again. And I found myself adding, with a tinge of desperation, "Please, Please, Please."
And when I stepped off the train the sun was bright for the first time in several days, and I remembered the homeless man who had turned around to me after church the day before when tears were streaming down my face and had smiled and taken my hand and held on to it for a moment. And I added to my silent prayer, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
I don't always know to whom I am praying. Sometimes God, sometimes Spirit of Love, sometimes an unanswering universe. But there is a part of me that reaches out, that says those three polite words I've been taught all my life, but says them with need and passion and gratitude.
Please.
Thank you.
Amen.
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