More than before I am reluctant to speculate on what kind of nourishment my own soul needs. Let alone what anyone else needs!
More than ever before when I reach this juncture of the prayer I go towards the ‘how’ of contemplative asking that simply waits to be fed from the Heart. It is a manner of asking for nourishment that waits to receive even the desire to be nourished by goodness, beauty and truth.
More than before I get drawn in by a hidden possibility in these over familiar words when they are seen in the light of what Christian mysticism calls spiritual recollection – namely all the faculties of the whole person gathered and collected up in prayer.
So I wonder - what might be happening in utterly whole-hearted, utterly dependent praying for our daily bread?
Ask with the whole sum of your self!
Ask with all the might of deep soul longings
singing in harmony with your highest thoughts
already quivering in every cell of your body.
Ask for your bread with care!
Know that words such as these
are heard in the furthest galaxy;
know that this spare phrase
can rupture and re-orders time itself
and the very sounding of it can
bring awesome things into form.
Ask for bread fervently!
Ask with the fiercest heat
of longing you can muster;
give thanks for each portion of grace
as it is remembered from its origin,
fetched out from future fullness
into what is sufficient for today.
Ask with a quiet heart!
Keep vigil for a whole purifying night
waiting for the Beloved to drip feed
your desire for truth-telling
infusing the acts and words
that will speak to this day’s need.
Then petition boldly for loves sake.
Ask for the yeast of forgiveness.
for ingredients of healing,
for the rising of justice
for the taste of wisdom
that will suffice for this day.