The Prayer of a Minor Prophet
By David Shirk
I once overheard a man pleading with another; this is what I heard him say:
What is it that makes a message great? What makes a book absorbing, music engaging, or a film compelling? What is it that makes a work of art seize control of your soul? It's the `people' part of the transaction—the personal disclosure, the touch of humanity. There is little that I receive from your non-personal presentations that I couldn't get from a book somewhere in the rows of a good library. It's the `you' part of your revelation, your insight, and your commentary on life that is so rich and valuable to me. I don't need the uninvested re-gurge of some dead man's best thinking echoed hollowly through your presentation—I can read that for myself. I need for you to tell me what those words have done—or undone—in you. At the very least, I need for you to include the pain and experiences and perceptions that he passed through in the acquisition of his truth. He purchased that revelation with something costly; it's not enough for you to provide a rental version for me.
I don't need your knowledge by itself either, but I desperately need that knowledge after it's been pressed through the wet fabric of your own experience. Then your knowledge comes alive to me—it nourishes me, and it becomes words that change the course of my life. Don't ever take the YOU out of your messages. Don't you know that real power comes when the man or the woman is the message, and the message is the man or woman? I want to eat fresh bread from your hand. I know you're not yet a finished baker. I know your `loaves' are still in the oven; I know they're sometimes doughy and other times, burnt. But, today, I'd rather eat from your hand than the hand of one not here.
I need to touch your life, your passion, and your essence—for this is the source of your power to me, the inspiration of your art, the execution of your craft, the inkwell of your words. Please be to me someone true, someone honest, someone real, someone alive. Don't worry about being cool or perfect or mature or holy; I'm not looking for that in you—I've already found that in another. Be `you' to me and you'll seem close to everything that I desire or value. Don't be afraid that I'll judge you; if you're real, I never will—I promise. But be afraid that you'll lose me if you're not—lose me because I'm bored, or lose me because I'm angry, or lose me because I'm tired of waiting for the real you to come out.
If people judge you for leaving your cave—for trying to be more real or honest or true—leave them alone; they're lost in a tunnel darker than your own. However, after awhile you won't feel like forgetting them any longer—you'll have compassion upon them and love them and see yourself in them—sometime ago. But never go back because of their words, for they have no place to lead you but into the utter darkness of insecurity, pride and senseless captivity. Inward freedom must be present for your virtue to flow, and true freedom refuses to show itself unless you're real, unless you're authentic. Without it I can't see you in your expressions and everything seems so flat and gray, so one-dimensional and without color. It reminds me of the prison from which it must have issued. It reminds me of a society that destroys its own art.
I need to recognize the journey. And I need to know that you recognize that it is a journey. When you only speak to me of grand destinations you erode my desire to go there. It's the journey that's such a vital part; it's the journey that prepares me to arrive—that makes me glad to be there and not be afraid of such a new and different place. But I don't want to get there too soon. I want to experience the road-trip and enjoy the hike. I want to take a train or sometimes crawl. I want the blisters. I'm not afraid of getting lost or being rained on. And it's okay if I experience some poverty, get mugged or run off the road. Yes, it's definitely okay… It's all part of the journey—my journey, part of owning where I'm headed. Don't rent me some guide and give me oxygen so I can vainly boast about `conquering' some great summit. Instead, make my thighs ache and make my lungs burn and don't ever try to climb it for me. And, for sure, don't tell me there's no pain in this journey—tell me I'll probably die but I'll love it because I'm alive at last. Tell me how it's killing you…
Be honest with me—share something of yourself in your words. Comfort me. Tell me that I'm not alone on this journey—that invisible hands are leading me. Tell me it's grace that keeps pushing me in the back. Remind me that I don't have to get it all right to still make it. Tell me stories of weaker men and women than I who have gone before me—tell me how they made it. Assure me that it's okay to rest or wander or take my time—tell me that I won't fall behind if I stop to measure the sunset or smell the sky, to put my hands in the earth or look for love. And, in the end, don't ever stop pleading with me to keep going—to not turn back and look for some easier road...
© David Shirk
emergingconversations@yahoo.com
(This piece may only be distributed in its entirety.)
