Prayer for the new year
Let's do this 2024
May we be at peace.
By which, I mean both may we not murder other people’s children, and also may we apologize to our own when we lob empty threats their way because we still haven’t learned how to take the deep breaths we are constantly asking them to take. May we understand that violence is not something only certain people enact—it is in all of us, in different forms—loud and obvious, quiet and manipulative, born of seeds of our own fear and insecurity. May we push back against all weaponizing and institutionalizing of these seeds in the world.
May we delete social media from our phones and become part of real communities that are sometimes underwhelming, because they are not full of the dopamine hits of Silicon Valley’s design, but also surprisingly beautiful. May we keep showing up, week after week, rain or shine, sparkly or dull. That’s it, just keep showing up.
May we draw on the connections in these communities to, together, organize for local and national leadership that mirrors the best of who we hope to be, rather than those that appeal to our fears and tribalism and cynicism. May we elect someone to be President of the United States that doesn’t embarrass us in front of our children and elders.
May we do something rather than nothing when we get all up in our heads. May we be more grounded in our bodies. May our hearts break open.
May we ask: is this mine to do?
May we love the earth not as an object—beautiful nature to pass through—but as a complex, miraculous subject that we build a relationship with. May that relationship include reckoning, nurturing, and a longterm commitment to do less harm. May we do small things that help us build muscles for the heavy lift of climate transformation.
May we hold technological advancement as inevitable, but shapeable. May we know that people, not companies, deserve to steer how technology changes our lives, who has control over it, and what they do with it.
May we listen to experts who acknowledge their own confusion and evolution.
May we have friends of a variety of generations and listen to all of them with equal respect and curiosity.
May we have text threads full of the kinds of conversations that make us feel less alone at midnight and 11am and all the times of day when it’s easy to feel like maybe you are the only one on earth who still doesn’t have your shit together, or is afraid of grown people conversations, or actually, and sometimes this feels the most counter cultural, really, really want to share something you’re proud of with someone even though it’s seemingly small and maybe a little silly. May someone on that text thread by an artiste whose palette is emoji and who has your venmo handle and sends you money when you say, UGH, so you have no excuse not to order dinner and feel nourished by the Thai soup even though the person lives a million miles away.
May we read books that delight and mesmerize and change us.
May we listen to music that helps us stomp out our anger and reminisce about our past lovers and write our own songs.
May we make and appreciate art. May we write over-the-top fan letters to the artists that move us.
May we wear clothes that make us feel beautiful and powerful and get haircuts that make us want to dance.
May we get better at clean apologies.
May we get worse at fixing and saving.
May we remember that other people legitimately do not experience the world the way that we do and see this as an asset, not a deficit.
May we delight in even the mundane, especially in the mundane.
May we scan for quiet kindness.
May we love and be loved.
May we be at peace.
I’m truly inspired by this beautiful list of prayers and the instant affirmation from our treasured group of readers.
I’d like to add a prayer that Courtney’s gift for eloquent expression continue unabated. We must not take this for granted and continually give her thanks. DD
Thank you, Courtney. You are in my group of spirit lifters. May your spirit be sustained and lifted by others as you do for ours.