My dear friend Barbara Fisher — author of Wallace Stevens: The Intensest Rendezvous and soloist in the early days of the New York City Ballet under George Balanchine, among her many other manifestations — gave me this prayer sometime in the mid-1990s. She wanted to encourage me through a dark time.
She typed it on the back of letterhead from the Department of English at The City College of The City University of New York, where she taught as a Full Professor.
I have folded it so many times, tucking it into wallets and purses and books, it is torn along the creases. I had to reinforce it with magic tape on the back.
Now it has a permanent home on the side of my refrigerator.
I find it a useful prayer for the living of these days:
Days pass and the years vanish and we walk sightless
among miracles. Lord, fill our eyes with seeing and
our minds with knowing; let there be moments when the
lightning of your presence illumines the darkness in
which we walk.
As I take a few weeks of sabbatical from posting here on Substack, I offer this prayer.
With love.
Tell me, what are the texts you turn to when you face a dark time?
