A Prayer for Protection

Plump, swimsuit-clad gummy ladies ride sugar seahorses across the blue icing pool on Andrew's goodbye cake this morning. Standing guard in camouflage at the corner of the cake is the soldier he will become. This is his final week as our aquacise instructor before he flies to Ft. Benning, GA, to become an Army Ranger. Two years of his four-year contract will be on active duty, two in reserve. Then his education will be paid for – if he lives, whispers the concerned mother’s voice within. The “seahorse” exercise involves half the class straddling a “noodle” and riding it to the end of the pool and back, first forward, then backward, while the rest of the class works out with Andrew then switches. It’s his signature exercise. I’m choosing to know he too will go there and back. Twenty of us surprise him with a potluck lunch including the cake, ice cream and a balloon-fiesta-gift-wrapped money box with a slot on top. He's so young to go in harm's way.

If I were Andrew’s mother, what would I want for him? What do I want for my own son, for every mother’s son? I want to know he is under the umbrella of the Prayer for Protection, so I write it on my small gift envelope:

The Light of God surrounds you.

The Love of God enfolds you.

The Power of God protects you.

The Presence of God watches over you.

Wherever you are, God is, and all is well.

The blessing goes with him as I let go, let God.

Being present and paying attention to common, everyday experiences reveal a universe at work beneath the surface of appearances, surrounding, loving, enfolding, protecting and watching over us. Deepening our faith and trust, these experiences become a reservoir of comfort, confirmation and peace, a resource we can later draw on in difficult times. At a recent Southwest Writers meeting, I was present, paid attention and had just such an opportunity to watch the universe at work.

Each month, a door-prize ticket is given to those in attendance. The drawing is for. . .what else. . .books. Some new, some used, some by writers who are members. I knew my ticket would win. It is the third one called, three for the trinity – Father, son, Holy Ghost, symbolic of Grant’s dad, Grant and Spirit. The digits of the ticket, #0032, add up to 5, the number that represents change. From more than twenty available selections, I choose Elizabeth Berg’s book, Home Safe. I heard her keynote address at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, resonated with what she said and wanted to read her work. Here it is. Handed to me. For free. Not only was I listening to the universe, it was listening to me and saying, “Your wish is my command.”

The story is about a woman writer whose husband dies, father dies, daughter grows up and moves away. “. . .it seems her life is beginning to change in ways  she is only beginning to understand.” Synchronistically, the protagonist and I have at least ten things in common. Both of us have been through deaths, losses and periods of not writing, both are facing unknowns, both have adult children entering relationships and starting new lives, both of us know it is time to grow and take on new responsibilities, do more letting go.

She “thinks of all she has lost and will lose. All she has had and will have. It seems to her that life is like gathering berries into an apron with a hole. Why do we keep on? Because the berries are beautiful and we must eat to survive. We catch what we can. We walk past what we lose for the promise of more, just ahead.” The experience of winning and reading the book, of watching the universe work, deepens my trust, my faith. It provides comfort, confirmation and peace to sustain me through difficult times. Through it all, we arrive, Home Safe, at home with spirit, our lives, ourselves. The universe is surrounding, loving, enfolding and watching over me. It speaks to me through a book this time.