A Prayer for a Day That’s Going Only Wrong

What do you pray when your day goes sideways?

Or when your week goes to pot?

Or with a life that goes to shitake mushrooms?

Do you stuff it? Shut it? Do you cry it out? Shout it out?

Do you tell God off? Do you walk away from the Almighty? Do you recycle platitudes because the God’s honest truth is too scary to say out loud to God’s face?

Or do you pull out the Anne Lamott three-shooter: Help! Thanks! Wow!

Do you play the blame game—and end of blaming yourself?

Do you slide into the theodicy house of mirrors and get lost in the endless cycles of why, why, why in an attempt to make sense of the senseless?

Do you say nothing or everything?

Whatever it is that you do, I hope that you don’t do it alone. I hope you have a friend with whom to share the sucky day. I hope you have a loved one who gets it and who doesn’t need to explain anything to you but rather just sits with you in silence, holding your hand or patting your shoulder perhaps. I hope you have a neighbor who says, “I’m sorry you’re having rubbish day [fill in the blank with your favorite colorful phrase].”

It’s been one of those weeks in the Taylor house. It’s been one of those seasons. Phaedra’s post-surgery experience involved two rounds of choking on her own intemperate blood. It was scary and god-damn awful.

And while we don’t always know what to pray, I know how important it is to be kind to each other and, also, kind to oneself.

There’s a reason why our Lord told us to love our neighbor as we love ourself. The two go hand in hand. The two matter to the One who made us both in his image.

If we fulfill the law of love by being kind to our neighbor, then we likewise fulfill the law of love by being kind to ourselves.

And that’s what I’ve attempted to give voice to in this prayer “For Being Kind to Oneself” in our book, Prayers for the Pilgrimage: A Book of Collects for All of Life, with Phaedra Jean Taylor.

If you’re having a sucky day or week or month or life, I’m really sorry about that. I really am. And I hope that this prayer gives voice to your heart’s frustration or hurt in some fashion. Hang in there. We see you.