Customizing My First Prayer of the Day
6:07 AM Sunday. Earlier this morning at about 5:10 AM, building on last Sunday morning's entry, I tried making my bed while silently reciting the prayer recommended by Google Gemini: "Lord, thank you for this new day. Guide my thoughts, words, and actions, and help me to live a life that pleases you." The combination of making my bed and reciting this prayer had a powerful effect. It was like dropping a stone into a still pond. Moved by the ripples, I found myself meditating upon the words of the prayer until it was time to get up from my zafu and change out of my pajamas at 5:55 AM.
As I explored the subtlety of my response to each word in the prayer, I couldn't help but introduce some customizations. "Lord," for example, felt too ambiguous. Was I addressing myself to God, to my personal lord and savior Jesus Christ, to a member of the British nobility, or to something heretically syncretic, like "Lord Buddha Christ Mind"?
This is the customization I eventually wrote on my index card:
"Thank you, Teacher, for the gift of this new day. Guide my thoughts, words, and actions. Help me discern and persevere in my true vocation."
Once I got to my desktop, I followed up with this Google Gemini deep dive:
In the course of my deep dive, I found the deeply inspirational praise song featured at the top of this post, as well as this intriguing teaching:
At this point, I am asking myself if I should substitute Adonai for Teacher. No, in the case of making my bed first thing in the morning, I should probably use Hashem instead of Adonai. But I can still use teacher, too:
"Thank you, Hashem - my ultimate teacher - for the gift of this new day. Guide my thoughts, words, and actions. Help me discern and persevere in my true vocation as I grow through today's lessons."
Okay, I will go with this every time I make my bed this week and see what comes up in prayer first thing next Sunday morning.
Now I need to get ready for breakfast at Iron Gate and a walk at Five Rivers with my mom. We moved her birthday plans up by a day because there is so much rain forecast on Monday morning.
Video links:
Comments
Post a Comment