I have an interest in the word "you" — the address that intimates use for each other, that yearning we might have, that sense of addressing self, other, Other, the void, the past, the unknown, the deeply known. That word allows me spaciousness without definition, and I like it, so I regularly repeat the word "you", in Irish, with the in and out of breath, until I've forgotten who is speaking and who is being addressed. ("The eye with which I see God / is the eye with which I see myself", my bewildering friend Meister Eckhart says.)
Is this a prayer? Sure. Is it a prayer? Why not? Is it a prayer? No. Is it? Yes. Too many years of theological study have immunized me from any interest in definitions that ask the impossible of the intellect. I'm interested in practices and signposts to the present. And breath is such a signpost, such a practice, and such an infinity.
is not that I survived the war
or that I write poetry
or that I am African,
but that I live in this world
just like you.
That I wake up every morning
to get the children ready for school,
that I comb my hair
and worry about its gray,
that I love my strong coffee
in the morning...
That I listen to music
and laugh out loud
when the mood is right,
that I cry when I read the news...
What you need to know about me
is not what country I am from
or how many languages I speak
or how I pronounce my name,
but that I believe
we are connected
by the simplest thread—
the need to be seen,
to be held,
to be heard.