present tense pretty

Prayer is the prettiest thing in the world.

But I have had to unlearn pretty to find myself here.

I've known pretty to mean surface-level beauty, as in, you look pretty.

Then there is also, I feel pretty, and

that sounds pretty.

Most people do not say something feels or tastes pretty, unless they are a poet.

I find that pretty is a human term, come to mean thinness and long lashes.

So I suppose the pretty I am trying to express better equated to lovely.

But not lovely, that word that melts into itself when you say it. Pretty. The word with the soft, welcoming p, submissive e, two delicate t's, and the y that carries on into the space after it is spoken. Not frail like dainty. Not endearing like lovely. Pretty. Bright like a belltone. Strong like spidersilk. Elegant like eloquence. Sensitive like skin.

That is what I mean when I say that prayer is the prettiest thing in the world. To talk to someone, something, without them being physically there. But believing, in the most serene and sensitive sense, that they are keenly listening. It is a bright, strong, elegant, sensitive beauty.

But then, to have a prayer answered in a sweeping sweetness you didn't know was possible--it is a feeling from the same fabric as laughing while crying. Laughing, the smiles coming like hiccups in-between the tears. Being continually reminded of something achingly beautiful even as sorrow or fear causes pain to escape from your eyes.

Are tears pretty? What about the prayers we come to with canyon-wide brokenness? Perhaps the prettiest of all to me. Turning to Jesus in the midst of a hurricane or an earthquake, in the stillness that comes in the middle of a storm is an act of trust. Even if it is taken in small, faltering steps.

I think one thing that sets aside the prettiness of this prayer and that bright, blushing, human love is holiness. The loves, they are similar. Both result in that smiling at the sky, covering your wide open mouth with a hand, staring off into the distance to let your eyes unfocus and refocus as your mind runs in loops. A smile. A tear. A laugh. A head shake in disbelief. A hand to touch the face. To make sure it's still there. Human love is a fleeting, flying feeling as you think about the things you said and what happened. It is a replaying type of beauty.

But prayer is a present-tense pretty. A live-in pretty. And a holy pretty.

Some mornings now, I wake up eager to pray. Others I snooze my alarm and turn over. Some I ignore the opportunity, the communing, completely. But the prayers are coming more frequently now. On walks. In stranger's faces. In songs, albums. Stretches.

When I saw a prayer answered not 10 minutes after I had asked, it felt pretty. When I ran into a friend and spent the rest of my day talking about Jesus with her, it felt pretty. When I fell asleep in my favorite coffeeshop next to a fireplace and a black walnut table with the book of Ruth open in my lap, it felt pretty. Not the kind of pretty I have control over. Not something makeup or even genetics can produce. It is a holy, gift-given pretty.

I pray now, with my thought-afar-off mind, to His make-everything-perfect-that-concerns-you presence. My prayers, now poems, escape me.

abide with me

lover of my soul

teach me more and more words

more words like pretty

to describe You