Too much thinking and my prayer for the day.
"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC
People have always told me that I think too much. I recently wrote about an interchange with my son, when he joined the minions who have said "You think too much." After years of experience, I responded, "people have said that my whole life. It's not like I can control the volume of my thoughts. It just is. I think how ever much I think." Of course he responded, "which is too much."
This morning, I was thinking about the holy spirit being bread, a favorite Frederick Beuchner quote about our purpose in the world, and dim mirrors. I prayed 'Father in heaven,' though I believe I might be better served to pray 'Mother in heaven' or 'Ultimate Reality' but that makes me nervous. It makes me worry that I need to add 'if that's ok with you father. ' I do not always capitalize 'you' when addressing God (or god) because in the french Bible God/god is spoken to in the familiar. God doesn't just speak English and on tutoie dieu. So here is how it went down on my yellow legal pad:
"Father in heaven, I need your Holy Spirit because no matter how productive I am in a day, unless You full me with the gift of your Holy Spirit , I won't feel good about it at day's end. But if I ask for that gift, you promise to give it to me like a father gives a hungry child bread and not stones. And I will be able to go to sleep tonight having 'done well' the way Abel did. I will sleep a sleep of satisfaction. Fill me so that I can fill the deep longing of the world with the heart you fashioned to crave doing what the world needs. You know my weaknesses and failings better than I do. Help me to change and overcome self-centered attitudes, anger, blame, shame, and greed, a list that comes readily to mind if I dare to give my sin a fleeting glance. Thank you that when I glance into that abyss, because you are with me, in me, and I am in you, instead of an endless black vaccuous hole, I see a dim reflection, a reflection that will be clear one day, of who I am in you."
