Where My Prayers Went
A friend asked me to pray for her.
She does not know
my most awful secret:
I do not know where my prayers went.
Maybe they are aloft in winds
that were never scooped up for review.
Prayers decades old—each launched with
anticipation’s faint acrid film upon my tongue.
“Prayer can move mountains,”
Sister Pauline told our second grade class.
So I spent my recesses and lunches praying
for almost an entire school year.
Well, nothing changed.
And those were my very best prayers,
I said them exactly as I was taught.
I do not know where those prayers went.
I kept praying. Later, I tried
new gods, old gods and made-up gods.
In Latin, Sanskrit, Hebrew…
Alas, I do not know where those prayers went.
I prayed fervently for love
for decades. On pillows, onto sleeves, lapels and
into tissues and into every blackness that
that my desperate hope led me. Without question.
Maybe I was facing the wrong direction
or did not have the appropriate attire.
Finally, I stopped praying—because no god that I knew of
knew where my prayers went either.
Even if a deity appeared, it would take an eternity
to hear all my tearful requests.
Even if they all arrived today, sorted by topic
and arranged by urgency.
So, when someone asks me to pray for them,
I don’t.
It is the kindest thing that I can do.
Because I do not know where my prayers go.
I hope that one day
I’ll find all my prayers
caught in some trees or maybe
strewn on a beach like starfish after a storm.
I will gather them up
and hold onto them forever.
Because everyone wants to know
where their prayers went.
—
by terre spencer
My prayers went to the Creator! I’m spiritually connected. GOD, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Terre- I’m in love with your line about finding your prayers caught in some trees, or like starfish on a beach after a storm. How utterly beautiful. In my mind’s eye, I keep seeing the Tibetan prayer flags strung up all throughout the Himalayas….the winds carrying the prayers to wherever they’re headed. And the prayer wheels being spun by the devout who walk by them, sending those prayers spinning so they don’t stagnate. Everywhere we go, we see our intentions to be acknowledged by something larger than ourselves, expressed in myriad forms. I admire your courage to speak out loud… Read more »
Beautiful imagery … But perhaps we should ask a different question—not where our prayers go, but where they come from? I think Saint Paul says somewhere that the Spirit inspires in us a groan too deep for words. I like that idea.
Thank you, Paul. I am pretty certain that anyone with unanswered prayers knows all too well where they come from. I cannot imagine being able to dissociate from that searing pain, although I know that some are able to do so. Yes, that place is sometime pre-verbal, sometimes beyond words and sometimes utterly horrifying when captured in images and/or words.
The “spirituality” that helps me with those places is Jungian psychology. That and gut bucket blues reach into those places with enough compassion to disarm my defenses. Which is another story altogether.
The idea of the shadow self in Jungian psychology does seem like a pretty good modern way to think and talk about the religious concept of sin. … Paul
Terre – such a poignant poem on prayer. Where do they go? Really. And for whom is the prayer offered? The one praying, or the one for whom prayer is offered? I don’t know sometimes. But I have come to believe that prayers are not so much about seeking answers as orienting ourselves toward the thing we seek. Thanks for sharing.
Thank, Roger. A friend in need seems to fare better when I DO something instead of praying. You know?