My Birthday Prayer

     Dear God, you who are my father and my mother and my lover,

     On this, the day of my birth, I see you in the green summer grass, and the flitting birds, and the turquoise blue sky. Your presence surrounds me.

     Your plan for the world and my small part in it continue to unfold. May I play my role well, and fulfill the dream you had for me so many years ago.

     Continue to gentle my heart. Don't not let me become hard or indifferent or calloused because of the evil we commit against each other that I see in the daily news, or my own fears, or simply the weight of the world pressing down on me.

     Help me to forgive. You know I'm pretty good at forgiving others, but help me with the harder tasks of forgiveness: Help me to forgive myself for so often not being man I think I should be; help me to forgive life that it didn't quite turn out like I thought it would so many years ago.

     When I get lonely, help me to see how much love I have in my life - more love than many people see in an entire lifetime. Make my heart more grateful for the friends and loved ones who surround me. Give me a constant awareness of you walking alongside me, so I can truly never be lonely.  And when, despite all this love, I get down, just sit with me and wait.

     Cure my blindness. Open my eyes to see the good in the world. Open my eyes to see you in everyone I meet. Open my eyes to see the great battles everyone else is fighting inside just like me, and then give me compassion for them.

     This new year, make me smaller. Help me to become less important, less self-centered, less focused on myself.  Let me find myself through service to others and to you.  Make me a blessing to everyone who meets me.

     As I go about the tasks I have set to improve myself this year, help me to carry my past failures lightly, and don't let it be some miserable onerous chore I have to slog through. Instead, let it simply be a journey I take with you to see the person I can become.

     The summer breeze is your caress, your glory is reflected in the drops of water on the grass of my little lawn, and the birds sing of the mystery of your love. Tonight, I will sit under crystal stars that wheel silently overhead and glitter as though they're quietly amused at my silliness and fears.  It is enough, my love, and I am grateful.

     Amen