For the past few weeks I have been walking the Camino de Santiago. This ancient pilgrimage route runs the width of northern Spain taking you to the Galician cathedral where St. James’ bones are reportedly entombed. Walking the whole 500 miles in one fail swoop has been on my bucket list after walking it in halves three previous times.
Lighting candles for others, and your journey, in the myriad of churches along the route is a common ritual. I have been holding a set of loved ones in my thoughts along this path and lighting candles for them has made sense. I appreciate that a friend recently sent me an article on the value of prayer for secular and religious people alike, and of just holding gratitude for those around us in this manner. One of my mentors, Angeles Arrien, asked that we honor her after her death by lighting a candle each month for a year on the 24th, the day she passed, and send along a prayer. I will complete that tradition tomorrow.
But, what do you pray for?
There are prescribed prayers in all the spiritual traditions, but what am I to wish for when praying for another? Walking hundreds of miles, you have time to think and this has been a point of deep consideration. I found I initially want to pray for health for those who are sick, that friendships are mended where suffering exists there, or that someone will get a good job. These wishes fall apart quickly when I think about how I am playing god as I start to guess how another’s life should turn out next. I am the conflict lady who likes to remind, at least herself, that we need discord to grow. Often my initial prayers were selfish requests to keep those I love with me in a way that makes me comfortable. My candle prayers, with hours to consider them, have needed to get away from specific solutions into the essence of what I want to send out to another.
Drawing from the Taoist and Buddhist play books, I found that what feels responsible is to wish for another’s well being. What form that will take is not my call. I started to modify a Buddhist metta prayer that goes, “May you be filled with loving kindness, may you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease, may you be happy.” Praying for well being, may not mean someone is cured of an illness necessarily, or a friendship is rekindled, since well being may come through these challenges. Sending thoughts of well being to someone who is no longer in physical form seems to fit better too.
What does this have to do with leadership and playing life well, which is blog’s theme? I can easily get focused on form when coaching or teaching another. It is a constant temptation to hope for what others should learn or how they should behave. Not only arrogant, I close down possibility when I get into specific solutions. Yet, if I am holding a more detached yet engaged wish for their true well being, I am much better at my job. This begs the question, how might we live our work as an effective prayer?
