Prayer for an Invitation

 

 I pray for you, world

to come and find me,

to see me and recognize me

and beckon me out,

to call me

even when I lose

the ability to call on

you who have searched

so long for me.

I pray to understand

the stranger inside me

who will emerge in the end

to take your gift.

I pray for the world

to find me

in its own wise way.

I pray to be wanted

and needed

by those I have

learned to love

and those

I must learn to love.

I pray to be wanted

and needed

by those I cannot

recognize

in my self-imposed

aloneness.

And

I pray to be wanted

and needed

by those

I wish to be wanted by.

But I acknowledge

the power of your beautiful

disguise, and I ask

for the patient heart

of all things

to understand

the uncertain, abiding

and intimate invitation

in my fear of leaving,

in my fear of arriving,

in my fear of taking your hand

to follow

that hidden, difficult

and forever beckoning way.

David Whyte

in, The Bell and the Blackbird