Just Enough

Desert Prayer

I am not asking you
to take this wilderness from me,
to remove this place of starkness
where I come to know
the wildness within me,
where I learn to call the names
of the ravenous beasts
that pace inside me,
to finger the brambles
that snake through my veins,
to taste the thirst
that tugs at my tongue.
But send me
tough angels,
sweet wine,
strong bread:
just enough.

(Prayer © Jan Richardson from In Wisdom’s Path.)

Sitting by a fire in a comfortable living room doesn't feel like a wilderness to me. At least not until I read Jan Richardson's prayer and look at my inner landscape as a place that does have ragged and rugged places where "wild creatures" dwell.

It's not all tame and domesticated inside. In fact, the deepest core of myself may actually be barbaric in its lack of civility....or as timid as one of the foxes that wanders around our Cuyahoga River National Park. "My" wild creatures watch me many, many more times than I watch them. They sit patiently in seeming shyness. But then they become bold to prey upon something that will "feed" them. Those are the moments when the sly and hungry "beast" of pain or doubt or fear or self preservation bursts from its cave and for a minute or two threatens the calm surroundings of my disciplined demeanor.

What happens if instead of trying to avoid or evade or control those beasts, I call upon them and interact with them. There's a scene in the musical "Children of Eden" when God, the Father, invites Adam and Eve to play a game -- the Naming Game. He shows them how to call the beasts into the meadow, into the sun. Then he stands apart from the scene, (but still with them) as they give each one of the creatures a name.... from that point on, there is a connection with the creature. What happens if I call from this place of prayer and name the beasts? I know that Christ is with me as I walk through this process...because of His powerful presence, even the wildest of the wild will purr, nestle, serve in peace or ... vanish.

Now, I'm not trying to be overly optimistic or naive. Some of the beasts that dwell in my "wild places" will never be tame -- they need to be placed forever at the feet of the Lord to be hemmed in and perhaps even dissolved. But there are others that may be amenable to domestication...taming...and perhaps may actually be transformed into something that can glorify God.

It would be foolhardy to call upon all of the wild things all at once. No...let them come gradually. And as they do, I trust the Lord, who sends the angels, and the food, and the drink...."just enough"...for the safe passage through the wilderness spaces of this day. Amen