My favorite Prayer

I'm up at Karonoko, have been for the long weekend.  I got lucky and we found a time for me to come up here one last weekend before I leave.  I've had a great time, and I'll update more later, but there was something specific I wanted to post now.

At my family place in Maine, affectionately called Karonoko (the name has a story), there is a little building near the driveway.  There are three doors all in a row into the little building.  The first door on the left goes into a room called the "Chinese Room".  I used to think whoever named it must be a racist because it's a bathroom (not that I had any reason to believe I had racist family members).   A while ago, my theory was proved false when I finally dared to ask the question, "Why do we call it the Chinese room?"  Turns out that the red paint used on the trim, the door to the actual toilet, and the random bureau were all painted with a color called "China Red".  So hurrah, I'm not related to a racist.

That was a little detour to the point of this.  Inside the bathroom, inside the red door there is just a toilet, some TP, a tiny shelf, a bunch of books, and some glade spray.  Book titles include the following:
Live and Learn and Pass It On: People ages 5 to 95 share what they've discovered about life, love, and other good stuff
Dog Farts written by Herbert I. Kavet, illustrated by Martin Riskin  (I've never looked in that book but I'm suddenly very curious)
The Great American Bathroom Book II: more single-sitting summaries of All-Time great books  (There is more than one volume of the Great American Bathroom book?)
Outhouses of the East ('nough said)
Sit Free or Die by M.J. Beagle  (For those of you not from New Hampshire, our state motto is "Live Free or Die", and the cover of this interestingly titled novella is an outhouse)

In addition to all these interesting books, there are four posters on the walls of this tiny little 4x5 foot room (and that's generous).  There is a painting of a dog wearing a top hat, which I think is supposed to be of a dog my grandparents used to have, there is an incredibly long poem called "Passing of the Back-House" by James Whitcomb Riley, which I've read snippets of many a time as it is conveniently hung right next to the toilet paper.  Behind the toilet is a weird old map of the Passamaquoddy Bay and Fundy Isles, which I'm guessing are somewhere in Maine.  But finally, there is, hung in a birch bark frame, a kind of prayer written on birch bark paper in black pen.  I must admit, I've read it many times, spending more time than necessary in this tiny little bathroom because I love it so much.  I've spent forever trying to remind myself to write it down so I can have it with me, and I just keep forgetting.  Well, I don't have time to forget again, so here I am, and I'm going to write it down for myself and anyone who cares to read it.   It's simple, and beautiful, and thoughtful.

God of the Hills, grant us thy strength to go back into the cities without faltering; strength to do our daily task without tiring and with enthusiasm; strength to help our neighbors who have no hills to remember.

God of the Lakes, grant us they peace and thy restfulness; peace to bring into the world of hurry and confusion, restfulness to carry to the tired whom we shall meet everyday; content to do small things with a freedom from littleness; self control for the unexpected emergency and patience for the wearisome task; with the deep depths within our souls to bear us through the crowded places.  Grant us the hush of the night when the pine trees are dark against the skyline; the humbleness of the hills who in their mightiness know it not, and the laughter of the sunny waves to brighten the cheerless spots of a long winter.

Got of the Stars, may we take back the gifts of friendship and of love for all.  Fill us with great tenderness for the needy person at every turning.  Grant that in all of our perplexities and every day decisions, we may keep an open mind.

God of the Wilderness, with thy pure winds from the Northland, blow away our pettiness, with the harsher winds of winter, drive away our selfishness and hypocrisy; fill us with the breadth and the depth and the height of thy wilderness.  That we live out the truths which thou hast taught us in every thought, word and deed.

Amen.

I think what I love so much about this prayer is that all the things that it prays for are the things that I get from being up here and hope so badly to hold on to when I leave.  I always take a last minute run to the Chinese Room before I get in the car for the four hour drive home, and it's one of the last things that I see.  This place helps me find my center, helps me slough off all excess that I've inadvertently collected just from being out in the world and allows me to relocate the best parts of myself grounded in love and family and shaped by a minimalist understanding that those two things are really all I need and are all that matter.  The prayer is just a more drawn out way of articulating the same prayer I make every time I leave here, which is fundamentally, "please let me hold on to the peace and contentedness I found here, and the perspective I have to accompany it."

amen. :)