Saturday morning was crisp–in a single-digit-degree-Fahrenheit kind of way. The winter birds were flitting and diving to the feeders, then to the snowy ground that was polka-dotted with the fallen black oil sunflower seeds. Chris had an NPR show on the radio, and I drank my exquisite Ely Gold tea. I’m notoriously bad about understanding song lyrics–or knowing who the artists are, for that matter. The music of a particular song caught my attention–it felt emotional and a little haunting to me. Then the words ‘prayer without words’ registered through my morning thoughts, and I felt a connection to the past days and weeks since my Dad’s death. It hadn’t even been two weeks yet–why did it feel like it had been much longer than that?
I used that amazing thing called the internet and instantly found the lyrics to the song considerably titled Prayer Without Words by Mary Gauthier. In spite of my ears hearing lyrics about bird’s high notes and shooting stars, I realized that she wrote about a much darker place than a father’s death. With a tad bit of gratitude that my darkness was because of a natural death after eighty years of living, I still turned the phrase ‘prayer without words’ over and over in my mind.
Here are a few of my prayers without words from the last couple of weeks.
Nature is praying all the time without a single word. Thank you, Creator, for the warmth on a cold winter day. Thanks for the bronzed sunlight that illuminates us at day’s end. Thank you, O Great One, for Light that penetrates the darkness. Thanks for the home in which we live and raise our offspring. And thank you, Wise Emmanuel, for the endings in our lives that give rise to our new beginnings.
*Prayer Without Words by Mary Gauthier from her Mercy Now album