life calling

LET SOMETHING ESSENTIAL HAPPEN TO ME
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O God,
Let something essential happen to me,
something more than interesting
or entertaining,
or thoughtful.


O God,
Let something essential happen to me,
something awesome,
something real.
Speak to my condition Lord,
and change me somewhere inside where it matters,
a change that will burn and tremble and heal
and explode me into tears
or laughter
or love that throbs or screams
or keeps a terrible, cleansing silence
and dares the dangerous deeds...


Let something happen in me
which is my real self.
O God,
let something essential and passionate happen in me now.
Strip me of my illusions of self-sufficiency,
of my proud sophistications,
of my inflated assumptions of knowledge
and leave me shivering as Adam or Eve before the miracle of the natural -
the miracle of this earth
that nurtures me as a mother
and delights me as a lover;

the miracle of my body
that breathes and moves,
hungers and digests,
sees and hears,
that is creased and wrinkled and sexual,
shrinks in hurt,

and swells in pleasure;
that works by the most amazing messages
of what and when and how,
coded and curled in every
cell and that dares to speak the confronting
word.
O God,
Let something essential and joyful happen in me now.

Something like the blooming of hope and faith,
like a grateful heart,
like a surge of awareness
of how precious each moment is,
that now, not next time,
now is the occasion
to take off my shoes,
to see every bush fire,
to leap and whirl with neighbour,
to gulp the air as sweet as
wine
until I've drunk enough
to dare to speak the tender word:

"Thank you"
"I love you"
"You're beautiful";
"Let's live forever beginning now";
and "I'm a fool for Christ's
sake."

- Ted Loder