After I pray,

I want to take the shoulders of everyone I see
and ask their faces: Can you see it on me?
Can you see it on my face, all over me?
Can you tell me what's different or new about me?
Can you smell it on my breath? Can you hear it in my talk?
Can you see it in my eyes, and the way I walk?
What do I look like? Can you answer me?
Because man, I can feel it, I can feel it on me!

I can feel it on me, that liquid fire,
that white-hot, ice-cold, healing light;
yes, light like fireflies, light like rain,
light like galaxies whirling in space,
and I want to know, can you see it on my face,
rippling through me like immortal power,
resurrection power, revelation power?

Power, power! We all want power.
Power is beauty, power is strength,
power is being above and beyond,
power is freedom to sing and to shout,
power is freedom to laugh and to cry,
power is having nothing to prove.
Power is being fully alive.

We want it, we want it - God, yes, we do!
We spend our lives in search of it, don't we?
We seek it in stories, in songs, on stage.
We spray a touch of it behind each ear.
We carry it in our pockets, string it around our necks;
these talismans, these trappings of power.
We addict ourselves to it, we drown in it, don't we,
we'll shoot it up our arms and through our skulls, won't we?

But today. Today. I have it. I have it!
And it's not what you think, it's not what I thought.
It's everything, everything I've ever wanted,
but more, more; ever so much more.
It's love, love come alive in every fiber of my being,
love on fire in my every cell,
love, giving itself to me over and over,
a wellspring of everything springing and well;

and oh, when I pray, I sing,
and oh, when I pray, I shout,
and oh, when I pray, I laugh,
and oh, when I pray, I cry,
and after I pray, I have nothing to prove.
I am fully alive! I am living in love!