44 lines
2.1 KiB
TeX
44 lines
2.1 KiB
TeX
\chapter*{Foreword}
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\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Foreword}
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\noindent I didn't set out to write a hundred and one prayers.
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I set out to write the ones I needed and couldn't find ---
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short enough to pray before the day got away from me,
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plain enough that I wasn't translating my own life into churchier language before I brought them to God.
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\medskip
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\noindent Somewhere past the first dozen I noticed a pattern:
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almost every hard morning, every long night, every ordinary Tuesday
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turned out to rhyme with something a psalmist had already said three thousand years ago.
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Weariness, worry, envy, gratitude, grief, the particular ache of a decision you can't quite make ---
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none of it is new.
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\medskip
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\noindent So this book borrows their voice.
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Each prayer opens with a verse from the Psalms and stays close to it,
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but with present-day concerns. You'll notice they're specific ---
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a wristband, a gurney, plastic bins after a storm. I've written them this way on purpose.
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A prayer that stays too general, ``Lord, help me in my trouble,'' rarely moves anyone,
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because it asks for nothing you can actually picture.
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But a prayer that is \textit{too} specific runs a different risk:
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what if your trouble doesn't look quite like mine?
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\medskip
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\noindent So hold these loosely. Think of each one less as a script to recite word for word,
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and more as an aperture --- a way of opening your imagination onto something
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you already recognize, even if the details differ from your own.
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Let your words take over where mine leave off.
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\medskip
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\noindent Scripture quotations throughout are drawn from the \textit{World English Bible},
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a modern and freely available public domain translation,
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with one small and consistent adjustment:
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I've used the traditional rendering ``the LORD'' in place of the divine name ``Yahweh,''
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simply because it's what most of us are used to.
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\medskip
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\noindent Wherever you are today --- weary, waiting, grateful, undone ---
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my prayer is that you'll find something here that meets you there.
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\bigskip
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\noindent George Marin |