When I was first writing, my little prayers were, 'Please, please, please. Let something be published someday.' Then it went to, 'Please, please, please. Let somebody read this.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My prayer became 'May I find peace... May I love this life no matter what.' I was seeking an inner refuge, an experience of presence and wholeness that could carry me through whatever losses might come.
The most meaningful and spiritual prayers I have experienced contained many expressions of thanks and few, if any, requests.
I had one request when I started doing the plays. My prayer was, 'God, let me do well enough to be able to take care of my mother.' I was able to do that 'til the day she died because of my audience.
Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, 'Children's Letters to God.' You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, 'Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.'
There's something about the idea of writing, and thinking about writing as a form of prayer - the way as a writer you call out into the world and throw your words into the world. You're not praying to a god, but you're almost conjuring a reader to arrive. That's what books do: they're an invitation to readers.
I desire an special interest in your prayers that my faith fail not in the day of adversity.
My prayers are being answered for my career. These are prayers I've been praying for as a kid.
I want to talk about God in a literary way. But I think I would have a very hard time praying to God.
I lay in the bed at the hospital and said, 'let's see what I have left.' And I could see, I could speak, I could think, I could read. I simply tabulated my blessings, and that gave me a start.
I never set out to write prayers at all. But there was a span of time when I didn't find it easy to pray, but, when I went to write one of the things I had to write, a prayer would come.