a sincere and heartfelt prayer

i sit in the airport waiting for another flight

going from where i have come from and

back to where i am going, and this is as

apt a metaphor for life as any

what they don't tell you when you are young

is that you will cry over having to leave those

that you love, and you will do this all of your life

if you are lucky

what they don't tell you when you are young

is that the heart never heals from being broken

but just becomes more soft and tender

and this is known as healing, and you

are lucky if you avoid the pitfall of hardening your heart

and arrive at the place of softness and tenderness

what they don't tell you when you are young

is that this entire experience of life will be incredibly beautiful,

incredibly poignant, and incredibly humbling

if you are lucky, you will come to this place,

of not hardening your heart, but opening

to the softness and the tenderness

what they don't tell you when you are young

is that words have power, that you will hurt yourself

and heal yourself with words, that you will hurt others

and heal others with words, and that love is greater

than all words and beyond words - that love will heal you

in ways that words could never speak

what they don't tell you when you are young

is that you will wander astray even from yourself,

that you will lose your way and, if you are lucky,

this will be part of finding your way

what they don't tell you when you are young

is that there is some great divine grace at work

in the universe, and you will experience things which

are inexplicable to the mind, an arrangement of events

to help you learn and love and heal and grow

at times this will feel like bad fortune, and it

will be so if you don't learn from it

what they don't tell you when you are young

is that the map is different from the terrain, that

the fires of transformation will actually burn you,

and that you will eventually be grateful for them,

that the longest journey will be from your head to

your heart, that there is a sublime beauty in one

who stands by you through all things, that you will

come to your end amazed that the entire experience

so greatly defied logic and probability for what

you thought was going to happen

what they don't tell you when you are young

is that there is much they don't tell you when you

are young, and that you are likely not even to listen

when things are told to you, for it will take several times

to hear what you need to hear, to see what you need to see,

and to learn what you need to learn

what they don't tell you when you are young

is that 'hear' is only one letter away from 'heart'

and that if you only listen, only a little bit more,

you will be amazed at what you hear

and at how it opens your heart,

even if it hurts, even if it humbles

until i die, until my very last breath,

i call upon all benevolent forces in the universe,

and my ancestors, to help me listen, and to guide me

towards an optimal solution for loving more fully

and more fully being able to provide

and care for those that i love