As I continue to desire to deepen my understanding of systemic racism, inequality, climate change, destruction of the environment, the “full catastrophe” often feels overwhelming. So I have decided to turn it over to God (or whatever you call your higher source).
This is my prayer:
May I be of use today. Please show me one thing I can do today to bring love and light to someone or something.
That’s it. I don’t pretend to have great wisdom or answers to the problems that I see all around me. But I can begin where I am. I can become one tiny force that bends the world in the direction of light.
SPELL TO BE SAID AGAINST HATRED
by Jane HirshfieldUntil each breath refuses they, those, them.
Until the Dramatis Personae of the book’s first page says, “Each one is you.”
Until hope bows to its hopelessness only as one self bows to another. Until cruelty bends to its work and sees suddenly: I.
Until anger and insult know themselves burnable legs of a useless table.
Until the unsurprised unbidden knees find themselves bending. Until fear bows to its object as a bird’s shadow bows to its bird. Until the ache of the solitude inside the hands, the ribs, the ankles. Until the sound the mouse makes inside the mouth of the cat. Until the inaudible acids bathing the coral.
Until what feels no one’s weighing is no longer weightless.
Until what feels no one’s earning is no longer taken.
Until grief, pity, confusion, laughter, longing know themselves mirrors.
Until by we we mean I, them, you, the muskrat, the tiger, the hunger.
Until by I we mean as a dog barks, sounding and vanishing and
sounding and vanishing completely.
Until by until we mean I, we, you, them, the muskrat, the tiger, the
hunger, the lonely barking of the dog before it is answered.
What is your prayer?
May you walk in beauty.
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