Blackboard

A Prayer for Humility

I want to be your blackboard, Lord

A black piece of blankness,

Nothingness

Inviting Somethingness

Anythingness

From the hearty scribble of that two-year-old

(The promise of tomorrow’s wisdom)

To the scientist’s quod erat demonstrandum

And everything in between

For only in blackness can I see the stars

Only in blankness can I be enlightened

Only in emptiness can I be filled

Only in Shunyata can I be open to grace

And yet

Deliver me from the painted blackness

Of the sainted braggart

Of Simplicity worn on my sleeve

If it has to be mine

Let It be my skin not garment

Preserve me from the priestly cassock

The monastic sackcloth

The godman’s saffron

The mahatma’s put-on nakedness

Stagecraft of the humble show-off

No. Not that, Lord

Nor even the bent meekness of Diffidence

Or Cowardice or Self-regard

Or the careless slovenliness of Sloth

Masquerading as this hard virtue

If those be the chalk marks on this blackboard

Wipe them off, Lord

Wipe them off

Because I am a blackboard, Lord

Not a printed sheet

Or carved granite

Blackboards are devoid of pride

Can be dusted to new blankness

An Eternal Shunyata

The blackboard waits for Vidya

That comes from Vinaya

Only to wipe out the differences

Between high and low

Between him who has and her who has not

A Humility that engenders Learning

And a Learning that makes for true Humility

Write again on this blackboard your beatitudes

And your promise you made then

To the poor in spirit

To those who mourn

To the peacemakers

To the meek

That they shall inherit the earth.

This appeared in the Fr. Agnel Ashram News Magazine of March 2014