ON PRAYER
The mystery, comfort, and power of pressing our palms together.
When I was a little girl, I had a babysitter named Angie. She taught me how to pray to God, specifically how to ask for good dreams. I wasn’t sure if I believed in God, and to Angie’s credit, she didn’t push her God, whoever He was, on me. But she did introduce me to the idea of a power greater than myself – someone, or something I could call upon if I or a loved one needed help. I hated getting chased by monsters every night, so I prayed to this person, this thing called God, thanking them for my life, my family, my friends, and asking them if they could please, please give me good dreams?
To my surprise, it worked.
I don’t remember what Angie looked like. I don’t think we kneeled at the foot of my twin bed. But I do remember how nice it felt, my wet baby shampoo hair against my clean pillow, and her sitting by me in the dark while I nodded off mid-prayer.
I said this prayer every night for years, I still do. And I rarely, despite being an anxious person, have bad dreams.
What to make of this?
Religion was a mystery to me as a child, God a question mark. My parents are both Serbian-American, and while we did spend time at the Eastern Orthodox Church with my grandmother, no one really explained anything to me. If you’ve ever been to an Eastern Orthodox service, it’s a production that goes on for hours. There’s lots of candles and Frankincense, getting up and sitting back down, repeating whatever the priest is saying, and crossing oneself, only to cross oneself again. The crossing oneself happened so quickly I never knew if I was doing it correctly. Right to left, or left to right? I don’t know why I didn’t just ask my parents. The not knowing seemed to be part of the big smoky mystery.
Years later, when I saw my son, Lou through cancer treatment, I wondered in the middle of yet another sleepless hospital night if crossing myself the wrong way all those years had somehow cursed me and my family. Where had God gone anyway? How I wished I had stayed in touch with Angie, perhaps she would have known. It was much easier to blame myself than to accept that He or whoever He was had totally forgotten me.
Still, during that time, I wore the gold, engraved Eastern Orthodox cross my godparents had given me. Feeling the cold, tiny cross against my chest brought me back to the fragrant smoke, the haunting songs, the boisterous after-parties in the crowded parish hall. I guess hours of drinking, eating, and dancing the kolo was the reward for making it through that mysterious hours-long service! Holding my ailing baby, I remembered back to the old ladies in their kerchiefs and the crumbling jam cookies they kept bringing out from the church kitchen. It gave me the nice wet hair and Angie feeling.
Maybe God was just a feeling?
I was introduced to Buddhism when I was a teenager. Marcia, a family friend, took me under her wing, and invited me over to her loft on Sullivan Street to listen to folk music and talk about meditation. She knew I needed some help. I loved the tiger tattoo on her leg, her bookshelves full of Pema Chodron, Charlotte Joko Beck, and Thich Nhat Hanh. Marcia made me feel good, like the Frankincense and the jam cookies.
“What are you so afraid of?” she would continue to ask me, as I grew up, and our friendship deepened. “I don’t know, tigers?” I’d joke, as ashamed of my fear as I had been not knowing what to do at church. Marcia urged me to make friends with my fear. What a concept! As wild to me as getting a tattoo of a tiger on one’s calf.
The night of my first music show, at a dive bar in the East Village, Marcia found me backstage and sat with me, her hands in mine. I remember sitting there and not really understanding what we were doing, except that the sitting together felt good. When Marcia died from cancer a few years later, I asked God or whoever was up there to keep her near me somehow. I remember wishing there were a necklace, like a cross, I could wear, feeling for it between my fingers whenever I missed her.
I’ve been thinking a lot about God. I don’t know where He is, or how He / they / it has allowed our world to descend into such suffering. I think about how every human has their own wet hair and Angie feeling, a love of sweet things like jam cookies, and singing with Marcia. I think about how every human has been scared. How every mother would fight for their child’s life, how too many are doing just that, every second, and asking why, why has God forgotten them?
When I sit on my cushion, sometimes I put my hands together to pray, and I feel Marcia’s hand in mine. It dawns on me that joining one hand to the other is taking one’s own hand, as one takes the hand of a child.
I don’t know if prayer works. I don’t even know if I’m doing it right. But if I can stave off bad dreams, what else might I be able to do?
Maybe when we put our hands together, we are telling the other hand it is not alone. Perhaps this pressing of our palms steadies our heart, giving us the courage to befriend the tiger? Or maybe it’s the smoky mystery, the wet hair and Angie feeling that keeps us trying, despite it all.
A MEDITATION
May I hold space for the hope that today’s prayer just might be answered.
May all beings be safe, happy, healthy and FREE, and may our hearts steady and open enough so our prayers turn to conscious action.
Sending love and comfort to all. Feel free to share what’s on your mind or in your heart in the comments, I love hearing from you.
xx Alexa
PS. Consider making a donation to Doctors Without Borders, helping to save lives in Gaza, and Sudan, Congo and 70+ other countries. When my heart is breaking and I don’t know what to do, I do something.
PPS. Here is a beautiful guided meditation led by the late, great Zen master and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh.
PPPS. I’m excited for my dear friend Heidi Smith, she has written a beautiful book you can pre-order called The Uncommon Book of Prayer: A Guide to Co-Creating with the Universe. I was honored to share my relationship to prayer with Heidi and I can’t wait to have this book by my bedside. A gift!
Dear Dear Dear Alexa,
Sixty years I have been on this planet. Before I could read, sad, angry, hurtful words accompanied my monsters and were the color of many "stories" I heard. From the moment I could read, and later from the moment I could write, it was me who controlled the narrative. Except for those forced memories. Like many of us, on our path, we learn the blessing of letting go, and becoming our own kind friend. I have recently embraced my own hand, learning to be there for myself. I reach across the cosmic sky and press my hand to yours as a solidarity solute. I feel you sister! I thank you for the imagery, the symbolism, the now tattooed image on my heart that I can access anytime and know that wherever I go there I am and I now have a pressed palm to remind me of that. Thank you, once again for the gift of your words, your unabashed sharing and the meticulousness of your craft and commitment to share. Yours is among my favorite voices on my journey. Namaste, Robi
I do think that we humans all have to find a way to become more human (kind, generous, compassionate) to be in harmony with ourselves and with Nature, our natural environment.
For humans, this takes learning and effort. Yet, it can be found, the path that is right for you. And me.
I do not think that there is only one path to this journey of being fully human. There are many, many paths, which explains the many religions and ideologies. It can be Organized Religion; it can be Music; it can be Visual Arts; it can be Writing; it can be Birds. It can be a combination.