I don't show it much, but I consider myself a very spiritual person. That spirituality takes an awkward form, and when asked my religious affiliation I tend to respond with 'eclectic.' I go through my life with an open mind, finding meaning and inspiration wherever it happens to come from, and I have a great deal of respect for any and all faiths. In my own belief, it simply makes no sense to me that there should only be one correct path to the creative and loving divinity at the heart of all things, with all other ones being somehow wrong or misguided. God wears many faces, and our relationship with him/her/it/them is a very personal and changeable thing, to me. As such, I feel that all faiths have wonderful teachings, stories, traditions and perspectives that we can learn a great deal from.

I must stress that this is only my own personal perspective. Faith is a very polarising thing to discuss, so for those readers who feel differently, please believe me when I say that I intend no disrespect to anyone. This is just a little piece of me, like any other creative work I post.

In any case, while this spiritual eclecticism has its advantages, it has the downside of leaving one without a solid structure or framework to build on. There's something very powerful and deep about ritual and tradition that I tend to miss out on with my approach. Lately my emotional state has been rather up and down, and it struck me that I was perhaps feeling that absence, wanting for something defined that my faith could be anchored to, however tentatively. So I decided to try writing a prayer.

I will not pretend that it's anything amazing or suggest that the words will speak to anyone else the way they do to me, but I like to think it holds together reasonably well in a thematic sense. And most of all, I think it serves its purpose for me.