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A Prayer for the Self-Absorbed Lord, I come to you today, chastened with an admonition that I have fallen prey to the unflattering vice of self-absorption, in which I rank the personal afflictions of minutiae above the genuine suffering of others. Lord, repress my instinctive reaction to defend myself, to describe as introspection what others see more clearly as the folly of the insular. O Lord, let me accept this label without rebuttal or recrimination, for long have I championed the motto, "Never admit to a virtue, when a vice will suffice." Lord, find these prayers of self-absorption and do with them what Thou will! Grant them! Deny them! Blast them into outer space where the golden messages of Voyager drift among the stars. It's unlikely that I will be able to tell the difference. Afterward, find the worthy prayers of those more attuned to the needs of their neighbors, prayers to, I suppose, open the hearts of the rich that they might provide funds with which the children of the poor can be fed, and such. Spend Your energies granting those prayers, I whole-heartedly entreat You. But I think You will not. I think You prefer listening to the hopeless prayers of the solitary, and why I cannot say. |
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A Prayer for the Self-Absorbed David Keffer Knoxville, TN November 17, 2014 |