Prayer From the Bottom of the Heart
In 2006, I was freshly married, very Mormon, and going back to school. I have been an early riser as long as I can remember— aside from the high school years where we enter into the cocoon and try and make sense of life while feeling like goo. My first class at the local college was taught by a woman named Emily Malsam, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00 a.m. I do not forget the people who introduce me to my favorite things. Ms. Malsam introduced me to Sue Monk Kidd as we read and analyzed The Secret Life of Bees. It wouldn’t be an overstatement if I said Ms. Malsam introduced me to the Black Madonna, the sacredness of a feminine circle, and my inner voice.
Since 2006, I have devoured everything that Sue Monk Kidd has written… though not with the urgency that was present in the earlier years, where her writing was a breath of fresh air and I realized that I had forgotten how to breathe long ago. Yesterday I started reading The Book of Longings which posed the question, “What is the prayer held at the bottom of your heart?”
Sue Monk Kidd, the author who reminded me how to breathe, proceeded to take my breath away as she penned the prayer found at the bottom of my very own heart— a prayer I held throughout my ministry program, a prayer that was answered with a booming reminder during a breathwork healing session, an answer so loud the minister and healer tending to me heard it too.
Kidd writes, “Lord our God, hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart. Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it. Bless my reed pens and my inks. Bless the words I write. May they be beautiful in your sight. May they be visible to eyes not yet born. When I am dust, sing these words over my bones: she was a voice.”
In the first moments after reading this, I felt so vulnerable and exposed… and then I realized this is a universal prayer; she didn’t write my heart, she wrote OUR hearts. We all live a life a little afraid of just how big we are and can be. We fear the power we hold inside to speak spells (prayer) into the world. We have been conditioned to play small in our offerings. To downplay our greatness. In the quest to not appear haughty we have misunderstood what it means to be humble in favor of a sense of humility that boarder lines on shame.
Today, I want to remind myself that there is no room in my being for shame. Today, I want to celebrate the magnificence and largeness of my being and yours. I want to praise those who create— writers, musicians, artists. I want to express gratitude to the Universe for the moments of connection to all that is, was, and ever will be that is found in human beings creating. We are the voice. We are the prayer. We are the spell. For time and all eternity…
