A Prayer for the Buoyant Ones

17 August 2012 | Meg Riley

You’re never at the top of anyone’s prayer list.
We don’t worry about you!
You seem to have tiny life vests sewn into every cell
That keep you afloat no matter what.
No matter what diagnosis or prognosis,
No matter what situation or ramification.

You wake up smiling, even after last night’s experience ground glass into your heart.
You never doubt that your love will endure, even as your beloved snarls at your cheer.
You tell yourself, and really believe, that it’s ok, everyone makes mistakes.
You float.  You get back up.  You bounce.

Maybe the earth tickles your feet and connects you to its deepest roots.
Maybe the wind caresses your cheeks every morning.
Maybe God whispers one word in your ear ceaselessly:  Beloved.
Whatever your secret, and I doubt you know it either, you are grateful.
You are grateful for life, you are grateful even for the struggles.

May your gratitude carry you, keep your head above the waves.
May you continue to soar through the air, your deep joy in gliding causing us on the ground to point in wonder.

And, should you ever sink—plummet, inexplicably, down, just as inexplicably as you have floated and soared all this time,
Should the wind ever leave your sails, should your cells become waterlogged and pull you down,
May you know that our prayers have been with you all this time, that our love will not waver, wherever you are.
Our love is both on the surface, and in the depths.
It breaks up like the light of the rainbow, refracting in places none of us have yet ventured.

 

Meg Riley is senior minister at CLF.  She’s been a UU minister for twenty years. As a UU kid in West Virginia, she quickly learned to enjoy being ‘different,’ which has served her well in a ‘different’ life.  Riley lives in Minneapolis, where she enjoys walking by lakes, gardening, reading and writing, and in social media, where she enjoys hanging out, keeping up with people, and playing the occasional game of Scrabble.  She is the parent of a teenager, and the companion of a number of four legged friends.