When I was a child, I prayed like a child. I chattered to God while walking to and from school, in the hours alone as a latchkey kid and when going to sleep at night. Often these prayers sprang from joy or at least the kind of good mood one seems to possess without effort as a child. Sometimes my prayers came from fear or a search for comfort, especially at bedtime: Please don’t let that shape in the corner be a monster. Please don’t let the devil get me. Please surround me with angels. Let angels be true.
I did not know much language. I did not have much knowledge—and certainly not theological knowledge. My requests were not bound by the rules of space and time. Maybe my childhood way of praying was something closer to what I’m hungry for again.
I have not lost the desire to communicate with the Creator, with the divine that I do still see in the world. That desire contains a kind of hope that I will get a response.
This message is an excerpt from “Still listening” by Sara Zarr in the July/August 2018 issue of Gather magazine.
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