Developing a rhythm of prayer is so difficult:

“Every day I want to speak with you.

And every day something

more important calls for my attention—the drugstore, the beauty products,

the luggage

I need to buy for the trip.

Even now I can hardly sit here

among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage

trucks outside already screeching and banging.

The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.

Why do I lee from you?

My days and nights pour through me like complaints and become a story I forgot to tell.

Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning to rise from the chair as soon as I inish this sentence.” (Marie Howe)