Member-only story
A Prayer for 2025: Invoking the Power of Small Awakenings
As a professor watching 2025 begin to unfold, I find myself grappling with waves of grief and deep mourning. Beneath these emotions runs an undercurrent of fear — for my students, my loved ones, and myself. The weight of these times threatens to overwhelm, especially against the relentless backdrop of tenure-track demands.
Yet, in these moments, I find myself turning more deeply to spiritual practice, not as an escape but as sustenance. While others might pray for dramatic interventions or swift justice, I’ve found myself drawn to a different kind of spiritual resistance. Instead of calling for grand reckonings, I pray for human nature's subtle but persistent forces to work their quiet magic.
This prayer emerged from those contemplative moments, offering a vision of transformation through small awakenings rather than catastrophic falls. It reminds us that sometimes the most powerful changes come not through dramatic confrontations but through the accumulated weight of human frailty, doubt, and unexpected moments of empathy.
Spirit of Life and Truth,
We call forth the quiet forces of entropy
To visit those who would craft harm.
Let human frailty be their teacher:
The forgotten detail
The misplaced confidence
The moment of doubt
The unbidden empathy
The inconvenient truth.