The day I wrote something almost like a poem, while waiting for a hamburger: Day Twenty-Six

(Sometimes it’s tough to feel at home in your own city.  Which is why I’ve given myself a challenge:  each day, for forty days, I’m going to find *one* thing I love about this place.  And then I’m going to tell you about it.  If you want to follow my journey, start here.  Today is Day Twenty-Six.)

Today, I sat in the warm yellow light at Burger in the Square, expecting a cheeseburger and fries.  While I waited for my food, I scribbled this prayer:

*

Oh, God–

If the frost must come, and the flowers must fade, and the birds and the locusts fall silent…

then grant me one request:

a mountain sky full of stars.

And if I cannot have stars, then grant me mountain air full of snow-scent, behind clouds.

And if I cannot have this, then let me fill the silence with the voices of those I love, and those I am only just beginning to love — even those I am just meeting now.

And if I can have none of these things, then grant me the hope of them —

for hope is not sustenance, but hunger,

and if I am hungry enough, I may have the courage to take what I need

at last.

*

Amen.