Life, As I See It

Maybe it’s human nature, or perhaps it’s only my human nature – but in my darkest moments, my saddest nights and loneliest days, I find myself needing to pray.  I’m just not sure who I am praying to.

Actually, that’s not exactly true.  I do believe there is something wondrous and unimaginable out in the Universe that keeps order in the matrix of existence.  I read recently another author trying to explain that even though she wasn’t certain of the gender or name or theology of what she believed was God, she still felt the need to personify it.  So, she calls on “God.” 

So, in my darkest night of the past month or so, which happened to be last night, the night Sam and I finally decided we could not work out this relationship, I found myself doing what millions of others do when they feel they are lost, or cannot move one more step without the help of something more powerful than themselves – our broken, hurting selves. 

I fell to my knees and cried. 

I called out to God, Goddess, Universe, Anything That Could Hear My Cry – I prayed and cried and cried and prayed and cried some more.  And scattered throughout it all was my heaving sob that simply was “God.” 

My prayers were round circles, starting with my plea to repair this broken thing; then prayers that everything would be over and I wouldn’t feel anything anymore; then prayers to ease my heartache and loneliness; then prayers to please, if it is possible, help us heal our relationship so we can love each other again.   I prayed for peace, for strength; I prayed for all sadness, all memories, all longing, all desire, all anger, all pain to be taken away.  I asked in no uncertain terms, please make me dead inside. 

The pain in my heart was searing and scorching; no amount of tears in the world could stop this burning.  I had no where else to turn.  There was no human, no consolation, no epiphany that could lift the veil of pain that surrounded me.  So, I prayed.

The truth is, I did not know what I wanted or even what to pray.  I only knew my soul was raw, and I could not make it through the night without sending all of my grief into the Universe, and hoping it could be heard.

I prayed for help – God, please help me!  A generic plea to the heavens that someone or something would hear my cry above all the other cries floating toward God at the same time. 

And then I felt guilty.  Who am I to think God would even care about this little thing.  The world is at war; people are dying from AIDS; people are murdered, their lives cut quick, leaving grieving loved ones and family; children are starving; children are slaves; natural disasters scar the face of the earth and the hearts of the living every single day.

But still, there I was on the floor, on my knees, sobbing great heaves of nothing, begging God to hear me.  Notice me, listen to me, be aware that my heart is broken in two and my spirit is weak and weary.

All this because I have lost the love of the man I loved, because I lost a love I had hoped to keep.  (I realize I am very selfish and self-centered when I am in pain.)  This was a relationship I had hoped to repair; that I had hoped Providence would repair.  Those prayers, the ones that asked for healing of our relationship, the ones that asked for healing in our hearts so we could work on the love we had – i feel that, for whatever, those prayers went unanswered.

So, last night, I felt the great incredible emptiness that follows heartbreak.  The sinking hole where love once was, and I cried.  I mourned.  I prayed so many different things, I did not know what to pray anymore.  I became reduced to a woman, a mere human, curled up on the floor of her living room, crying and uttering prayers without words.  All I could send to God was my feeling, because there weren’t any more words left to explain it.

When I was much younger, I attended (and belonged to) a Pentacostal church.  The theology of that denomination was steeped in and built upon the belief that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Trinity of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) was alive in this day and age and because of the love of the Father, would intervene on our behalf in prayer.

Specifically, I was taught that there were prayers in our hearts that could not be voiced or given a language that could do the prayers justice.  So the Holy Spirit would look into our hearts and souls and feel our prayer and take it back to The Father translated into the heavenly language so the full prayer could be heard in heaven.

That’s what I was taught, not necessarily that it is so.  But what I do believe is that in the deepest grief and pain, or physical as well as emotional distress, there are not actual words that can be spoken to give justice to what the soul is feeling.  And in that moment, we wail to God, wordless prayers, capable only of sending up our pain and our hurt and all the things we do not even understand about ourselves; and we pray that God understands it.

That’s where I was.  That’s how deep I had fallen.  There simply were no words.  No language that ccould be spoken to express my sorrow and pain.  No logical grammatically correct statement that could tell God every single thing I was feeling at that moment. 

The only language I was capable of holding on to was the language of grief.  There are no words in that language; just feeling.  I opened my mouth and the sounds that escaped me were tortuous, keening moans and howls.  I exhausted myself of thought and responded to this primal need to cry out to heaven – to cry something, to hope I could be heard.   My mind could not form thought, my body could not move.  I could feel my soul saying over and over, “look into my heart and see all the things I cannot say, the things I do not know how to say, even the things I am hiding from myself.” 

I needed, wanted and prayed for God to hear what I could not speak; to know what I could not understand; to look into my heart, my soul, and see everything. 

After what seemed like hours, I lay exhausted on the floor, holding on to a pillow and a small crystal someone had given me once because it “healed old wounds.”  I clutched them both as if letting go would sink me into a deeper void. 

I was tired; I was weak.  I was not alone.  All the grieving souls around the world cried with me; cried for their own hurts and healing; cried to their own Gods.  We all cried together.

And so it ended, that deep gnawing wailing prayer.  There was nothing left.  Truly – nothing left to say, or plead or express.  Everything in me had somehow come out through my wordless cries and found its way upward.  And I hope, to the ears of a God who heard me, heard all of us, and has mercy enough to help us heal.