Worship
Offerings and prayers
Give what can be received. Speak in a language you would not be ashamed to hear repeated.
An offering is a gift, not a bribe. A prayer is speech addressed, not a purchase order. You may be passionate. You may not be careless with the sink, the garden, or someone else’s name.
Offerings that this house prefers
- Clean water, poured later on a plant you tend.
- A candle burned while you are awake and in the room, then snuffed. Never left for a god to babysit.
- A poem read aloud, including your own bad one.
- Food you share with the living, a portion set aside and then eaten or properly discarded the same day.
- Money or labor given to the living: a community kitchen, a trans mutual-aid fund you have actually checked, a park cleanup. Say the name of the gift out loud so your devotion stays attached to the world.
Offerings to avoid
- Alcohol poured into a houseplant or left where a pet or child can reach it.
- Blood. This library does not teach blood offering. A paper cut is not piety.
- Anything stolen, including wild plants from protected land.
- Letters asking a deity to override another person’s will.
A prayer shape
Four lines are enough
- 1Name who you are addressing, and admit it if you are not sure.
- 2Say what is true today, not what sounds liturgical.
- 3Ask for a quality in yourself — courage, patience, clarity — or offer praise with no ask.
- 4Name the ordinary act that will accompany the prayer. Then do the closing: water dealt with, flame out.
If anyone is listening, let it be as a friend listens, not as a landlord. I bring water and an honest report. I will do the next small thing myself.