Creating the Space Where Questions Can Become Prayers.

The other day I had an appointment that needed a clear head. So I went to the head clearing clinic down at the beach. I hadn't taken my camera, but I had my phone which does the job pretty well. A turbulent sea, a whole tribe of turnstones, (over here on the migration trail), and an amazing sky did the job fine.

I've often wondered about what it means to "clear the head", and whether prayer is a way of doing that. If what is meant is a recovery of focus, a centring of attention, a reboot of the inner hard drive, then yes, prayer does that.

So is a walk on the beach a form of prayer? I think it can be, though for me it usually takes the form of looking for God on the horizon of the landscape, or seascape, of my life. Walking along the beach, or standing watching, and listening to the rhythm of waves breaking and rushing towards me, I find strangely comforting and comporting. Comforting in that the horizon is open and promises new possibilities beyond them; comporting because the rhythms of heartbeat and waves begin to synchronise, producing a sense of being part of something beyond my own inner world of preoccupations, anxieties, sadness and grief.

It is almost a year since Aileen, our loved and lovely daughter, died. Many a time now I've walked this beach with the same questions. Much of life is now lived in the interrogative mood, and for a parent searching for a lost child, they come with the same regular rhythms of waves breaking at my feet: why? what if? how?

I know my deepest questions are unanswerable. But that doesn't excuse or reduce the urgency of their being asked. So walking the beach is often now an exercise in scanning the horizons of the life I now have, and whatever futures are now possible; and it is a place where, whatever the questions, I feel keenly the love and the memories of a daughter who was God's gift to our world. 

There are moments when the sound of the waves breaking is followed by the gentler sound of water-flow and a brief near-silence, before the next wave breaks. Sometimes, somewhere, hidden in those near-silences, and before the next wave breaks, there is space for questions to become prayers which may not have any answer other than that your love and loss are known, and held in the heart of God. Most times, that is answer enough.

No experience in life has more profoundly changed the way I think about prayer, God, love, faith and hope than Aileen's death and the sense of incompleteness there will always be without her. Yes, life goes on. But it is life diminished, reduced in possibility, and requiring to be lived with gratitude tempered by grief. That is not a complaint. It is a recognition, that much of the journey is behind me, and there are still horizons ahead. Walking on the beach, remembering the past with thankfulness tinged with sorrow, and looking at the horizons in front of me, the heart is comforted, the head comported, and prayer happens.   

Comments

[Lisa]

Very moving and humbling post. Thank you for sharing.

[Isobel Barber]

This resounds so deeply within me.....for you......for Shiela.......for Andrew........for myself now 25 years without my soulmate, husband, lover and best friend.. only possible to bear with the awareness of God’s presence and the assurance of His promises..🌈❤️

[Jim Gordon]

Thank you Lisa - words are never adequate, but they are what we have to speak out of the heart.

[Jim Gordon]

Thank you Isobel. I loved Peter as a father in God and a friend whose encouragement was one of God's long term gifts into my ministry. We think of you both with gratitude and as blessing in our lives, and think of you often Isobel.

[Hermina]

I think of you and your family, my friend that I have never met, as your sad anniversary approaches. And I remember how a friend told me, the second year is the worst. I think the realization sets in that the passing years will not dull the pain, and the loss will never lessen.
But the "... sense of being part of something beyond my own inner world of preoccupations, anxieties, sadness and grief...", that is somehow a balm, be it waves, or trees, or stars in the sky. That connection, at a primal level, to the planet, the universe, the mystical realm that is beyond us and deep within us. That is something, at the least.