Tomorrow's Prayer

I was studying these blogs the other day to see if any patterns have been emerging. Confronting mortality is an emotionally trying experience, so I was hoping to discover that at least I’ve been growing and learning from it.

I’m not sure yet about the growing or learning part, but I do see themes taking shape. One that has surfaced strongly in several essays is the need to let go of “planning for the future” or of “wanting tomorrow.” Something tickled my memory about that phrase, “wanting tomorrow.” At first I thought the spark was just recalling a movie line, perhaps Yoda scolding Luke, always his mind somewhere else, never on where he was now.

But that wasn’t the source. By chance—if there is such a thing as chance—I was asked to participate in a local church group discussion last week about spiritual journeys. I have a drawerful of prayers I’ve written over the years and I rifled through those looking to see what I could contribute to the conversation. There in a prayer I’d written over ten years ago was the phrase about wanting tomorrow.

I’m nondenominational, I belong to no church, and yet I do pray. I’ve written many of these prayers down to give to friends and have them lying in a drawer gathering dust. The one about wanting tomorrow I’d titled "Tomorrow’s Prayer."

I am watching a chickadee

toss away good seed from the feeder

to find one sunflower kernel

I am living my life like that,

tossing away perfectly good days

to get at the imagined future.

If I did not want tomorrow,

I would not suffer today.

Who am I to have become so greedy?

You have given me today.

How did I come to want tomorrow too?

Ten years ago I already knew what I need to do now. Let tomorrow go. I am beginning to suspect I already know all I need to know to face the years remaining to me. What I need to do to thrive is simply remember what I know. And I suppose I could pray more.

Above: The Chickadee, computer drawing. Copyright Patricia Tichenor Westfall 2010