In which I outsource to e.e. cummings.

When I was a little girl, my mom taught me to start all of my prayers by saying thank you first before launching into my wish list. For years, Jesus patiently listened to some version of this: "Thank you for sunshine. Thank you for ice cream. Thank you for my cat. Please make my brothers be nicer to me. Amen."

Have you ever tried this? Forcing your mouth to say thank you when your heart is screaming please? It kind of messes with your head.

Philippians 4:6 tells us that, instead of being anxious, we ought to preface our prayers to God with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving doesn't mean that we should simply learn how to be content with our portion without wanting more. It's saying that if anything is making you anxious-anything at all-you should bring it to God, but do it with a grateful heart.

I set aside some time this afternoon to try to put my previous posts on prayer into practice.  I really do want X, and I would really like God to respond. After a quick jog along my new favorite stretch of the Mt. Vernon trail, I sat down at a shaded picnic table overlooking the Potomac. I stretched my list of Xs out in front of me, took a deep breath, and . . . realized that it was the most beautiful day I'd seen in months.

Thank you for the merciful respite from summer's heat. Thank you for the sweet promise of change this new autumn season brings. Thank you for a quiet moment to enjoy the beauty of the way the sunshine gets tangled in the tree leaves before shattering on the river's smooth surface. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

What was it that I wanted again? 

A playful breeze picked up the piece of paper I had been scribbling on and sent my wish list floating toward the river, forcing me to literally chase after the things I wanted. My petitions were made, but they were made by a thankful heart, not an anxious one. God would have heard them either way. But this was a much more pleasant conversation.


i thank You God for most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings