Write. Pray. Hope.

I woke up at 5am and couldn't go back to sleep. I was filled with a sense of excitement. I traced it to where it was coming from - it was the story that was writing itself within me. Last night, I went to sleep thinking I should get to the article I want to write for a book that's being put together by the alumni of my alma mater. This morning, as soon as I woke up, it started writing itself, spilling over its own words and sentences, urging me to get up and go put it down on paper.


After two hours of working on it, I'm still filled with energy, still wanting to write. This is the feeling I want in my prayer - rather than the slightly off-tone, trying-too-hard puja I do in the tiny corner room filled with framed photos of my gods. This feeling, this writing, this enthusiasm are my offerings to God - not necessarily the words themselves, or the story (those seem to come together on their own, from the inside), but the excitement I bring to it, the 'bhava' that brings tears to my eyes, tune to my melody, and strums on my heartstrings.

And so I figured out what's been missing in my days - and what I could do to bring life back to it. Write.

But write what? Now I'm done with the article, I'm back to a blank, white paper staring me in the face. I continue to write in my journal of course, and it gives me the continuity I need. It gives voice to my soul, answers to my questions, direction to my days. These pages are my daily prayers, where I pour out my concerns, complaints, confessions, where I retreat, repent, rejoice.

But what I also want is to write a proper work, a grand odyssey, an ode to God. I want to make an offering that's fitting, not these paltry bits of paper that have barely a beginning, and never an ending. Is that too big an ambition? Am I trying to feed my ego now, not my soul? Will this be an offering that's only fulfilling to me, for how can it be fitting to the Lord who can't be fit into anything, let alone the pages of a book. And yet, something tells me to keep hoping, to keep dreaming that dream, and that might someday end up being my wake up call.