This prayer is for excellence.
This is a prayer for excellence in whatever activity that we're involved in.
And the description that I'll give to begin with is an athlete,
A track and field athlete who's doing the high jump.
And the idea is to jump over the bar.
And if we're looking at it from the perfectionist's perspective,
We're going to say,
This is where the bar is,
And I'm going to do my best.
I'm going to run up to the bar,
And I'm going to try and jump over it,
And I'm either going to succeed or fail.
And we're going to look at that from a different perspective.
If we were to leave the bar lying on the ground,
It's really easy to get over it.
You just kind of step over it.
You put it up a couple of feet,
Then it's easy to kind of step over it still.
Up a little bit higher than,
You know,
Pretty much anybody can jump over it.
And what happens is as we raise the bar a little more and a little more and a little more,
We get to extend ourselves.
We get to go from being just somebody who could trip over this thing and make it pass to a top level athlete who is at the peak of our game,
And today I can get over the bar at this particular height.
So the bar isn't telling us whether we're succeeding or failing.
It's telling us how well we're doing right now.
And the striving for excellence is to understand that the metric that we're using to tell us how our performance is,
Is simply feedback that we're getting on how well we're doing on our personal best.
So there are those movies where the people have a jet pack and they're able to fly.
One of those guys,
Doesn't matter how high you set the bar.
They'll just fly over it.
But that's not the point.
The point isn't how high we can go.
It is how excellent we can be at the activity that we're involved in now.
And that's the prayer.
So we get to turn away from the stuff that's going on around us from the judgment that we have about the activities that have been leading up until now.
And in prayer,
We get to turn to that infinite creative power,
That divine presence,
That infinite love,
That one,
That creates everything,
That has created everything,
That continues to create everything.
There is only that one divine power and presence that shares itself through and as and in all of its creation.
Everything is that divine presence,
That infinite love,
That limitless intelligence,
That infinite substance revealed in its own particular way.
Everything,
Everywhere,
Everyone,
Every moment,
Every activity is that one expressed fresh and new.
And because that's true everywhere,
I know it's true right here and right now.
For me and for each one listening to this prayer,
Each an individualization of that divine power and presence,
Each with a combination of skills and gifts and talents and abilities that makes us uniquely who we are.
And the activities we are engaged in are the opportunity to express those gifts and skills and talents with excellence,
To understand who we are,
To understand where we are,
To understand who we are,
To understand where we are on our path,
To understand what's available and accessible and possible for us now and to jump out into it and to bring excellence into the world through it.
And that infinite creative power,
That divine intelligence is not only empowering us to excel,
To leap as high as we're going to leap,
To perform at the level that we're going to perform,
But also providing us with the guidance about that which is ours to attempt,
That which is perfect and appropriate and reasonable for us to engage in.
We let go of the idea that if we try and we don't measure up to some preconceived notion that we're somehow failing,
We are simply succeeding at doing something else.
The high jumper who knocks the bar off is succeeding at jumping almost as high as the bar.
So we let loose our attachment that we knew ahead of time what it's supposed to look like afterwards and embrace the experience and invite excellence to unfold and reveal and share itself through our activities.
That's the good that's unfolding now.
I'm so grateful for this.
I'm grateful for the wonderful way that excellence is showing up in each of our lives.
I'm grateful for the inspiration,
For the energy,
For the motivation and for the wonderful joy of successes as we have demonstrating our new levels of excellence in so many different areas.
I'm grateful to know that there's nothing that stands in the way of this power.
There is no darkness dark enough to defeat the light.
The light is shining for and through and as each of us individually and all of us together.
And I'm grateful for it.
I'm grateful to know that this good is underway.
And so with gratitude for this good and more,
I speak this word,
I release it into that creative law,
The one that always says yes.
And I know without any question,
Hesitation or doubt that that law is already saying yes.
This good is already underway.
And so I let it be.
And so it is.
Amen.
