After reciting my last prayers in the morning, I put down the Rosary beads on the small table, and before going inside, I often linger briefly on the rocking chair in meditation directed at sacred and other things. That is, I seek to direct my mind towards sacred things, but often I must do so by great force of will against the drift towards worldly thoughts, for which I remind myself there is plenty of time later in the day.
After a few minutes I go inside to the dark kitchen and begin making coffee, flipping the switch on the electric kettle, which will have been filled with water the night before. The LED around the switch lights up like a supernova in the dark and the kettle begins simmering immediately, a comfortable sound of morning underway. Then I pick up the little electric spice mill and grind the beans that were placed inside last night. The screeching of the grinder rudely penetrates the darkness of the kitchen for a few seconds then ceases.
I take the glass Chemex carafe out of its holder place it near the edge of the counter in front of me. Then I pull a folded square paper filter from out of the vertical stack of filters in the side slot of the carafe holder. I spread out the square filter open with my fingers, the way one is supposed to do for the Chemex, and place it loosely in the upper cone-like chamber of the glass device, the paper still stiff in its dryness, not yet conformed to the cone of the glass.
While the kettle gently increases in intensity, I linger at the sink for a moment or two, looking out the window towards the west at the lights and the White Tank Mountains far in the distance against the still-dark horizon. I invariably give myself a brief eye checkup, closing both eyes alternatively, and then using both at once to actively focus on the horizon and on things in the foreground,
Then I go back outside to let the water boil, which takes seven or eight minutes. I take a seat once again in the chair, sometimes to meditate, although now I don't prevent my thoughts from turning to worldly things if that is where they need to go.
But I often strive to take this time to pray more, not in the form of recited prayers, but petitions to God for other people individually and specifically. I pray for certain souls every day, people close to me, living and dead. I regularly make a point to scour my memory at length to remember and to pray for as many individual people in my life that I know and have ever known---family, friends, non-friends, rivals, acquaintances, long ago co-workers, bosses, former in-laws, teachers, classmates, students, collaborators, brief traveling companions, doctors, cops, priests, pastors, and every other category of person who has crossed my path. Each one is a chid of God, and worthy of that dignity. Each interaction was a gift, and a test.
Some names are more painful to remember than others, so I try to pray for those people more often. I dig into my soul to ask God to give to each one of them joy, love, and peace in this life, knowing that if God does so, they will not ever connect this to me, or any intentions I would have for them.
Prayer for others is part of the atonement that comes from the forgiveness we are promised. Sometimes it is the only atonement possible.
But if I feel the pain in recollection of certain names, I don't beat myself up about the same old things over and over. I believe that God will forgive me of sins for which I repent, and certainly I have repented of so much wrong I've done. Yet at times I discover layers of my sinfulness in certain long hashed-over episodes of my life, facets of of having failed to live up to what God would have wanted me to do. The righteous path that I should have taken is now revealed in more detail, vividly and unmistakably, in contrast to what I actually did. At times I thus have to repent all over again, given this new awareness of the Truth. Each such unveiling, no matter how unsettling at the moment, gives a feeling of liberation and peace that encourages one to go onward in this quest of self-reflection.
I pray for public figures as well---the leaders of government to whom God mandates our temporal obedience, providing we can obey without incurring certain types of sin, and in accordance with conscience. It seems fitting of our time that the most difficult prayers are in this category, even though they are for people whom I have never met.
Praying for the folks you agree with, that's easy. It is a gut punch to have to pray for individuals you privately wish could begin enjoying a long and healthy retirement, who you wish could cease their opposition to what you see as a public will for the Good, and even for ones to whom you think certain Justice is due. I confess to not praying often enough for public figures whom I have ridiculed or about whom I have spoken ill, sometimes even in the midst of mediation or prayer, just moments before, if my mind wanders.
Thankfully God has a better view of things than you and I, and He has a far better plan than any of us could ever begin to dream of making. It is such a relief not to have that burden of deciding all of the course of the world, only the part that my individual duty, role and conscience prescribe and permit me to do.
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