“I offer myself to Thee – to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always! Show me how to live.”
“Relieve me of this fear and direct my attention to what you would have me be.”
“I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding.”
“I devoutly adore you, O hidden one,
Truly hidden beneath these appearances.
My whole heart submits to you,
And in contemplating you, It surrenders itself completely.
Sight, touch, taste are all deceived in their judgment of you,
But hearing suffices firmly to believe.”
“I am heartily sorry
for having offended Thee
and I detest my faults
above every other evil
because they displease Thee.
Who, in Thy infinite wisdom,
art so deserving of all my love
and I firmly resolve
with the help of Thy grace
never more to offend Thee
and to amend my life.”
“From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me.
From the desire of being loved, Deliver me.
From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me.
From the desire of being honored, Deliver me.
From the desire of being praised, Deliver me.
From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me.
From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me.
From the desire of being approved, Deliver me.
From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me.
From the fear of being despised, Deliver me.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me.
From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me.
From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me.
From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me.
From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me.
From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me.”
“You with me, you before me, you behind me,
You in me, you beneath me, you above me,
You on my right, you on my left,
You where I lie, you where I sit, you where I arise.”
Are a lot of these parallels deliberate, St. Teresa-style? The last one…seems deliberate.
I recognize that last prayer as the basis of one of the most annoying children’s choir songs of all time. Don’t use that version as a pickup line.
And here I was thinking that was the sexiest. Sad.
Different strokes…
I love that song! My dad sang it to me as a lullaby every night.
So, no, I don’t think it’s a good pick up line, just because memories of my dad tucking me in doesn’t really get me hot and bothered.
Anything John Done has ever wrItten. The pickup lines are secretly prayers and the spiritual stuff is secretly pickup lines.
John Donne is my historical boyfriend.
“Nor ever chaste, except Thou ravish me…,” etc. etc.
basically the Leonard Cohen of the metaphysical poets?
Secretly?
“Lord, grant me chastity and continence… but not yet.”
Less sexy if they misunderstand “continence” in this context, mind you.
I desire to be consulted. I will forfeit that for no human nor deity.
“Grant me chastity… But not yet 😉 😉 😉 – St. Augie. (PS Also send pics.)”
Not to be too impressed with my own idea, but dirtbag St. Augustine would be incredible.
“Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace
And you burned for my piece, amiright?”
If your piece is burning, you might want to see a doctor.
“Pears? Don’t mind if I do, thankyouverymuch!”
Straight White Boys Praying
“As we seek to know and do your will,
open our ears to Listen, our eyes to See,
our hearts to Love, our minds to Learn,
our lips to Speak, our hands to Serve.”
(I’m going to be struck by lightning now, aren’t I?)
c.f. also all St. John of the Cross.
The Loreena McKennitt version makes me all knock-kneed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MnEwaSdlnk
Any other Calvin grads read the first one and flash back to the school motto?
Which would also be an excellent pickup line, “I offer my heart to you, promptly and sincerely”
How many Calvin grads are there around here? I’m not one, but I’m from GR and I did attend their music camp for quite a few years…
Daughter of two Calvin Alumni.
Yes, this all rings a bell. Many many bells.
Haha, my parents are also both Calvin alumni (both lapsed, though. This past summer my dad told me he stopped getting the Spark because it was too homophobic, and I was Very Proud).
AQ grad. Picked up by osmosis and also having to drive up the Beltline every time I needed to do anything on the east side.
Oh my godddd, I was just going to share this for that exact reason. This would have been perfection back at Calvin, and maybe helped anyone get laid ever.
Haberdashers Aske’s School for Boys, which my childhood best friend attended, had the motto “Serve and Obey”.
Was that last one written by Sting?
Apparently Mallory’s crush didn’t get the hint from “A Guide To Flirting With Plausible Deniability,” so we’re back to this again.
“Write articles on your website about chatting up people you find attractive. Deny any suggestion that they are about anyone in particular.”
Is anyone else super envious of the object of Mallory’s passive aggressive meta-flirting?
This is completely off topic, but I just wanted to tell Mallory this: you are doing a fucking awesome job as Prudie!!!
Yes, I really loved all your responses today! A+ job
Teach my heart this day where and how to see you,
Where and how to find you.
You have made me and remade me,
And you have bestowed on me
All the good things I possess,
And still I do not know you.
I have not yet done that
For which I was made.
Teach me to seek you,
For I cannot seek you
Unless you teach me,
Or find you
Unless you show yourself to me.
Let me seek you in my desire,
Let me desire you in my seeking.
Let me find you by loving you,
Let me love you when I find you.
I am missing out on prayers, apparently
All of these assume a lot of patience on behalf of the solicitee, tbh.
Yeah, srsly. Just quote Song of Songs and be done with it. “Hey babe, your hair is like a flock of goats and your breasts are like twin fawns!”
Goats and fawns musta been way sexier back then.
Not really, but it was a relative thing.
As in, Goats and fawns, or your relatives.
I know that it’s about being soft probably but I can’t shake the idea that it’s because fawns are wobbly.
My own vineyard I did not guard, amiright?
::high five::
Once dated a guy who responsively read Song of Songs with my best friend (why did he do this??? why did she??) while I was sitting there every single week (we were at religious summer camp so we had time for this). It was, frankly, very weird, but I adore Song of Songs because of it.
“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.
*meaningful look*
hey baby, I can’t promise about each day, but I’ll give you your daily bread tomorrow morning
I may not be good at this
nah, just add “if you know what I mean” to the end and you’re golden
This brings to mind Pitbull’s lines in the song “Give Me Everything Tonight”, and makes me want to offer up a heartfelt “Dale“.
“You with me, you before me, you behind me,
You in me, you beneath me, you above me,
You on my right, you on my left,
You where I lie, you where I sit, you where I arise.”
I MEAN. *fans self*
every breath you take
every move you make
…
I’ll be watching you
This is quite peculiar. I mean, I’m fanning myself too, and having nice thoughts about my beloved. Meanwhile, he is in the shower singing “Tubas in the Moonlight” (I HAVE NO IDEA) with such enthusiasm that his voice is cracking and going all over the place on the high notes.
the last one is about positions, right?
I’m so glad I never saw the “Deliver Me” one until today because that would have messed me up in high school with the level of impossible that would be for me.
I am disappointed in myself that in all my years growing up catholic I never once thought to make a double entendre out of a prayer
I would be sincerely terrified both OF and FOR anyone who asked me to do with them as I would, and to relieve them of the bondage of self.
Unless there were some very serious discussions of hard limits and safewords, beforehand. (But not as pickup lines.)
“I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed”
Because it’s so much easier to execute your Irish Goodbye, when it’s not *your* home.
That last one is…St. Patrick’s Breastplate? (haha breastplate) and I think it sounds a little less intimate when you put “Christ” back in where all the “you”s went. Or at least, a little less position-explicit. But wow that switch worked out really well and I intend to use it at every possible opportunity (read: maybe once in my life).
Nah, there’s a lesbian sex scene in an Emma Donoghue novel (Hood) with the “Christ” version. Yay for Irish Catholic lesbians.
As a lapsed Catholic in college, I had a group of Christian friends interested in helping me find Jesus. They introduced me to some delightful prayers, including one that was very heavy on the “I’m down on my knees, submissive before you, O Lord” rhetoric. I nearly broke a rib from suppressed laughter when I realized they were all completely earnestly clueless.
Well, see, there’s a strand of Catholic mysticism where this is, like…not TOTALLY overtly the point? but the whole sublimation of their sex drive into “Jesus is my bridegroom” is a very real and deliberate thing. So prayers in that school do tend to read that much more like love/sex poetry.
Well hello, Bernard of Clairvaux.
Man, these remind me of how skittish and commitment-averse all the forceful religious stuff made me, growing up. It’s all just a LITTLE INTENSE, y’know, and I’m really not ready to surrender myself quite that completely just yet. I hear the word’s a pretty big place with an awful lot of books and music and movies, and I’d like to go check them out first.
“SURRENDER YOURSELF TO GOD”
no thank you. maybe later.
“Let us enter into the house of knowledge of ourselves,” and/or “”You are a fire always burning but never consuming; you are a fire consuming in your heat all the soul’s selfish love; you are a fire lifting all chill and giving light.”
OTOH, the mood I’m in at the moment “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well,” would probably do me, especially if I knew the speaker was a cat person.
This inspires me to try Conan’s prayer to Crom as a pick-up line next time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBMY3VV5AMA
Haberdashers Aske's School for Boys, which my childhood best friend attended, had the motto "Serve and Obey".
Nah, there's a lesbian sex scene in an Emma Donoghue novel (Hood) with the "Christ" version. Yay for Irish Catholic lesbians.
This is quite peculiar. I mean, I'm fanning myself too, and having nice thoughts about my beloved. Meanwhile, he is in the shower singing "Tubas in the Moonlight" (I HAVE NO IDEA) with such enthusiasm that his voice is cracking and going all over the place on the high notes.
Mallory. Marry me.
This reminds me of the poem “The Dark Night of the Soul” by St John of the Cross, a 16th century Carmelite friar. I first heard it set to lovely music by Loreena McKennit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MclLF473XtA) and I had NO IDEA that it was actually describing some Christian mystical experience of the soul’s pursuit of God, and was *not* actually about two young people in rapturous, swoony love. Man, there’s a lot to be said for some expressions Christian holiness. I really missed out in being brought up Muslim.
This brings to mind Pitbull's lines in the song "Give Me Everything Tonight", and makes me want to offer up a heartfelt "Dale".