What You're Not In Charge Of....

Surprise Surprise

Jun 07, 2024

I’m deep into my next book project - a contemplative prayer book for the season of depression - and I recently wrote this prayer:

It’s not absurd

For members

Of the first species

Aware of the scope and terrors of the universe

To have an “off day”.

The miracle of existence

Is a sacred humiliation

A holy terror

A paradoxical blessing

A benevolent fluke

An impossible mystery.

I am a part

Of this impossible mystery.

May this Low

This “off day”

Be an unexpected invitation

To feel in my body

The miracle

Of my

Mysterious existence.

It’s a gift to love what you make… and I have particularly loved this prayer of late because I’m in a season of sacred humiliation.

I can, and I do, forget that life contains cyclical seasons of humiliation…

…“humiliation” meaning the way in which you knew how to be confident with all the aspects of life has dissolved, and the intimacy with your weaknesses and limitations is effing with your day to day responsibilities.

This happens all throughout our lives… and I know you know this.

But it still catches me off guard when I find myself in one of these liminal seasons.

There’s always lot of unknowns about the future in my work. Not necessarily on what to do, but on does it all work out. And look, my whole career is invented, being a self-employed artist, and I have inhabited this space many times before.

But yeah… it’s not absurd to experience an “off day”.

My guess is you have too.

Last week I was on a flight to Ohio when one of these holy terrors came upon me. I couldn’t call anyone, or talk to my wife…. I just had to sit with it and move through it.

I got to Columbus at midnight, went to my hotel and went to bed.

In the morning, I woke up early, got some hotel coffee (salvaged with extra extra flavored cream!) and sat alone in my room and prayed.

I’ve been doing this thing that I heard author Elizabeth Gilbert talk about called Love Letters. The basic practice is to get to a quiet space and then to ask Love if it has anything it would like to say to you. Listen… and then write down what you hear.

To listen to the voice of God is to listen to the voice of Love. Sometimes we mistake the voice of Shame and Fear as the voice of God, but beloved, that is not the Divine cadence. So it can be helpful to just simply let Love be Love.

Here’s one part of that letter I’ll share with you.

“You keep trying to be in charge of Providence… and that’s not your job. It’s mine.”

Hmmm. What a gentle word.

Later on that day I was reflecting on what the spiritual practice of this could be. A phrase I could say to encapsulate this prayer. My favorite summation was this: