March 2018: The Opposite of Guilt
The first prayer I ever memorized was the act of contrition. It’s opening line is, “O my God, I am heartily sorry, for having offended thee.” I was eight. While I had to memorize all of the prayer as part of my first holy communion, it’s the first line that has stuck with me over the years. There have been moments when even someone’s slowly stated oh my god will wire trip the rest of the line in my head.
When I talk with people about my spiritual practice these days, I sometimes joke that I’ve been "heartily sorry" ever since learning that prayer. Heartily sorry precedes me like a spiritual superstition, a permanent state of mind. Part of my recovery has been trying to untangle heartily sorry from my spirit, learning to trust a universe, my lowercase god, a god that does not need me to be heartily sorry about anything. A friend recently shared that she’s trying to have a god that loves her mistakes, loves her messes, that won’t shrink when we screw up.
Prayer was never going to be a tool of mine. I left it back in the Catholic CCD classes I went to every Tuesday night until I was in the eighth grade. I used to tell people that I was allergic to prayer, that the thought of people having a relationship with god, made me seize up in rebellion. When prayer was introduced to me years later, when I was newly sober and willing to try anything, a woman told me that when she talks to god, she just talks to the air in the room. This became my prayer, where I would lie awake in my futon bed in the apartment where I lived alone and stare at the dark ceiling at talk. I worried aloud. I listed things I was grateful for. I marveled at my fledgling sobriety. I sometimes allowed myself to laugh, joyfully repeating something I was happy about. I was twenty four and the laugh in the dark felt so vulnerable, so desperate. Where was the heartily sorry? Where was the contrition? During those months when I talked to the air in the room, I never defined what I was talking to. I just knew that it somehow felt different than talking to myself. The air in the room could be my own companion. It could be the space where my own god could grow.
Back then I gathered as many prayers as I could. A woman I knew gave me a staples packet of photocopies of prayers, some of them useful, some of them weighted with the language of guilt I wanted to avoid. Poetry was my best prayer. I would copy poems I loved on the backs of envelopes and tack them up in my tiny living room. I would memorize poems that I wanted to be able to say to myself throughout the day. The first line of Adrienne Rich's poem Ideal Landscape - We had to take the world as it was given - became something I said over and over, a cousin of acceptance. Some people used prayer for comfort. I think I used prayer for connection, for action. It's something to do. These days I find myself praying not because I believe it will change the way I feel (it never does) but because it’s a ritual that moves me from point A to point B. There are the begging prayers, the exhausted prayers, the humbled prayers, the prayers for others, the prayers for myself, the selfish prayers, the ecstatic prayers (thank you, those prayers say, thank you). My prayers will always have my voice, my personal stamp. They may be prayers written long ago, or they may be prayers I’ve made up, things I want to mantra into my spirit. I've tried to keep an open mind with prayer.
Last week I sold my old bike, the one that's been leaning against the hallway outside of my apartment, unridden and unloved for almost two years. The woman who came to buy it had just moved here from Denmark. She wobbled on the bike in the thin evening light up the sidewalk, testing it out, before paying me $50 for it. Last night she texted that the frame was broken and expensive to fix, and that she wanted her money back. Her text message was full of anger, exclamation points, hurt feelings. I slipped immediately into the space of heartily sorry - of course I would pay her back, I was so sorry, what could I do, where could I meet her? We agreed to meet tonight near the subway so I can pay her back. The guilt I felt became self-centered, all consuming. Heartily sorry was a thrum in my pulse, so easy to return to - as if making a mistake will always lead to me wanting to apologize for my existence. Worrying is praying backwards. In this case, the prayer is to be of service, the prayer is to show up and make amends, and then the prayer is to let it go. Contrition is defined as a state of remorse. I want the opposite of my guilt to be my purpose. I want to exchange heartily sorry for human, human, a gentle chant that lets me make mistakes without self-flagellation. It's an imperfect relationship to prayer, but it's a relationship, tended and constant.
This month is my prayer anniversary. It's been eleven years since I first tumbled into a dull room of folding chairs and spiritual people who were willing to share what they had with me. Eleven years since I was first told to talk to the air in the room, since I was first given the stapled packet of prayers as a suggestion, since I was first introduced to this poem, a favorite prayer of mine. Happy anniversary to all of the prayers I've said since then and the prayers that are yet to come. It's still a word that can make me uncomfortable, but I move my lips anwyay. I always prayer in my own voice.
xo,
c
* March 16th! Come on out to celebrate the birthday of TRAILER TRASH by the brilliant July Westhale! If poems can serve as prayers, her's are poems that I'll carry with me for as long as I can.
TRAILER TRASH book launch + reading
Friday, March 16, 2018
7pm
WORD Brooklyn
126 Franklin St.
with readings by Jennifer Baker, Nico, Courtney Gillette, Genevieve Walker, and July Westhale
Hope to see you there! xoxo