The Unsettling Hope of Prayer

I’ve been writing “holy fool” prayers lately.

The energy behind them is part hound—nose to the earth to sniff out all kinds of wild trails—and part Luna Lovegood, that airy spirit from Harry Potter who celebrates the strange and moves through whatever is happening with an almost unsettling hope.

I started writing these prayers because I need some of that energy in this riot of a world right now.

Riot can mean a violence against—human against human, or against the sacred earth. This can bring us to our knees, hearts breaking again and again.

But riot can also be what every bud in my spring world is readying itself to do right now—burst out and shout in scent and color.

(And let’s not forget all the babies readying themselves to bust their way into life on earth and begin living their own adventures—including my grandson who is due any day now!!)

It comes down to choice.

Against—fighting, fighting—is one way to live.

So is living with and in and for. This is what the holy fool longs to do—to be the one on the journey who pulls out the unsettling hope just when the darkness feels like it will last forever.

Because our roads are not easy. We might expect a zambonied life—smooth, frictionless—but every holy fool knows that adventure involves beasts and bandits, wrong turns and even peril.

In this, in all of this, we are called to be the holy fool. A liminal being. One who can navigate the boundaries. The betweens.

Like the hound, we get to be rooted, in constant contact with the earth. How can we care for her and all the other fools around us? And oh my, where will this joy trail lead?

At the very same time, like Luna Lovegood’s namesake—the moon—we rise. We live our days with the sky, finding that which makes us shine, wondering what wild hope can we give wing to today?

I don’t have answers. Just questions.

And a wild altar.

And my holy fool of a heart offering the unsettling hope of prayer. Here’s one of my favorites that I wrote. Take care of you.

o

holy

fool

you

trickster

playing

along

the

edges

of

the

world

teach

me

to

be

ajar

wide

open

always

ready

to

live

between

here

&

hello