Truth: I’m not religious about prayer. Bigger Truth: I want to be. Or maybe I am?
Let me be clear: G. O. D. What that is for me on any given day can change – this much I know.
What I call it changes, too.
Still, do you think I’m a fanatic? This is one of my fears. And that you won’t like me for invoking the word or the notion. Think I’m weird. If you’re religious you’ll pity me because I’m not more prayerful. If you don’t believe in God you’ll think I’m too dependent on something that can’t be proven. Ok.
Prayer before I write works for me. Maybe it is more of a reverence. I just notice what I’m doing. I don’t have a brand or a how-to list. It’s a surrender of sorts to some kind of faith that doesn’t have a name but is mostly the doing, the process. It’s something bigger than me and it’s in me and it’s because of me it looks and feels a certain way. It’s a partner and a guide that seeks itself and also seeks me.
I want to explore this more; keep exploring it. I, um, prayed, reflected, was mindful, reverent, about it because, I’ve decided that when it comes to writing my true desire is process as the foundation. It’s a given that seeing my work published is a joy, but it is only through truth and allegiance to whatever the process wants from me that I have ever had that gift.
Manuscripts, shopping lists—it’s really, kind of, all the same. See what I need, what I long for, and get it on the page. Then, see what comes next.
—Meredith
Photo by Brett Sayles
