Secrets and Wishes

Secrets and Wishes

(“Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.” Psalm 116:2)

There always seemed too many barriers erected to
keep you from hearing my pain. Sometimes whispered<
sometimes gravely twisting my words, I had shouted like
a lost child threatened with the universe.
Sometimes I drenched the sofa midnight with the tears
poured out every excuse I ever gave for giving up
on the winding path too steep for my age.

I could point to the overnight fasting I tried one
New Year’s Eve locked inside a local church. I planned
to stay there till noon of the first year. I thought I
would break through, that God would show up and pat
me on the back and clothe me with something that finally
covered my instabilities. Instead, I called my girlfriend at 8 to
come and pick me up while I insisted we get some donuts.

I failed.

I thought.

After decades of clawing the dirt, of bawling at altars with
gray indoor/outdoor carpet, of repeating the same prayer over
and over
in the hopes I would be heard. There were decades I studied
the long prayers of an elder who implored God as long as a sermon.
I could not rule out that I simply could not pray. At least not like
long-winded partners who filled the room with time. I knew I did
not shine nearly as long as the power-players who pointed to miracles
someone else who told someone else had told them.

But once I was out of that cocoon, the echo chamber that jailed me,
glass house that only reflected
what other said within it; once I read the classics again and played
with my kids again,
something softly took me into its confidence.

It’s like when my grandson wants to tell me a secret and so
I put my face next to his with my ear by his mouth. He may mumble
something incoherent, but it doesn’t matter to me at all. He knows
I heard and that is good for the both of us.

God, do you truly bend down like that? Can I stop the crying fits
and the long-winded approaches to your throne? Oh wait, if you
bend your ear like that, you have left your loftiness far behind. Do you let
me whisper what I had been afraid to say in the middle of the moments in the
glass housed churches I occupied?

Can I talk and walk and, between verses of the songs I listen to, share a sentence
or two in your inclined ear? Can we hold court, but right here on the earth where
my feet trod, and the sheets I lay in when I have something more to say?

Maybe I will sometimes need to shout, but not to get your attention.
I may even throw a tantrum when the stars refuse to shine, but I’ll
end up whispering my secrets and wishes into your ear.