In response to Merton...

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"

This is my mother’s favorite prayer. I have prayed it many times and it has felt appropriate quite often in my life. Yet right now, it seems to be entirely inappropriate. Thus I offer this prayer as a sort of response to the inadequacy of the great Mr. Merton’s.

My humbling God, I know exactly where I’m going.
What’s worse is I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.
And yet now that the time draws near I feel myself flailing and fumbling.
My logic is lost amongst the reeds of the river of my imagination.
My courage cowers at the lion of my fears.
And my heart aches for the sense of reliability that I knew before I got myself into this mess.
And so my God I ask you this;
To lend my logic the planks of memory and the sail of hope so that my original purpose may always ride out the currents of ill-founded distress,
To embrace the knowledge that my fears will not shrink, and rather my courage must find its own will to fight back,
And to comfort my need for understanding by assuring me that all order begins with a mess, and patience and practice are the only ways to create that change.
My dear God, I knew what I was doing when I started,
And with that full knowledge I pressed forward,
I fear many evils, but know that I encounter them all with you at my side.
And through your faith in me, I will continue to walk into the storm that may lie ahead.

- Kyle O’Neill