Anam Cara

Prayer and the Desire to Survive

It is often at the extremes that the eternal comes alive. When we are safely cushioned in our daily routine of duties and expectations, we forget who we are, and why it is that we are here. When suffering chooses you, the fabric of self-protection tears. The old familiarities and securities fall away as if they had never been there. The raft of desires that guided daily life become utterly insignificant. Suddenly they seem like fantasies from another era. Every ounce of energy gathers into one intention: the desire to survive. In some subtle, animal sense, we always secretly know how precarious and vulnerable our presence here is. Suffering absolutely unveils this fragility. E. M. Cioran writes, “Without God, all is night, with him light is useless.”

Our desire to endure and survive is a powerful instinct and it shows how desperately we long to belong to life. It takes immense pain to dislodge that ancient desire to belong. When that desire is driven to the edge of its own endurance, it can often endure there, turning to its own depth and taking the form of prayer. The prayer that calls out of this wilderness is one of the deepest cries of the human heart. Often this prayer is answered excruciatingly slowly. At the first stage, just enough light is released to enable you to hold on at the edge of the cliff. Then over time a stronger light gathers to guide you back to shelter. Such suffering radically refines the way you belong in your life. The true essence of your life becomes present to you. Real prayer opens at the heart of desire, at a level below your image, words, and actions. Real prayer is the liberation of that inner voice of the eternal.