A Prayer
In The Style of Borges
I am sat as close to lotus position as my hips can bear. I lean gently on my wall and lower my eyelids such that I can only register motion and color. The last time I prayed was in the odd and insincere years of my tweens. Today, at twenty-two, I want to write a prayer imbued with more direction and heart. I write now to temporarily justify myself, what I see now as the main function of the practice.
What then to pray for? To begin, I believe it would be a gross mistake to use prayer as an excuse to yearn for material goods. First, begging the metaphysical to concern itself with the physical is a belittling affront. Using the only rope between oneself and a god to pull them towards is an enormous act of hubris. Second, I am already able to resolve myself with no use for such a rope. Rather than begging for something, I can already simply do away with the suffering I incur over the verminous somethings that direct my prayer. As they root out insecurities to tug, I could turn them into thieves breaking into an empty house, simply unable to steal anything I own. Imploring any god for the worldly goods I strive for is a waste of breath as I could already be perfectly content with all I have.
I could also consider praying for virtue, that eternal and beautiful good which gods also delight in. I could use prayer to climb up that holy rope and participate in the divine. But upon reflection, that too would be a mistake. The development of virtue is a practice, a techne, but it is distinct from other practices in that one cannot be naturally apt. Opposed to weightlifing, where one could naturally be strong or mathematics, where one could be naturally smart, the beauty of love must solely come from careful and intelligent training. Perhaps then, the mere act of praying for such a thing simply saps any of its shimmering beauty. Any virtue I could garner from without myself I just cannot care about — even granting that such a thing is conceivable. Why I pray when the metaphysical could never grant it to me?
What then to pray for? Everything I could receive won't improve me, and everything that would, I can't receive. I think then that the only reasonable thing I could meaningfully pray for is a thorough quieting of the mind and the finality of a prayer, as such.