Poems & Prayers
Rating
Summary
Poems & Prayers by Matthew McConaughey is his second published book. This book, unlike the first (Greenlights), is not a novel that tells a story, but rather is a collection of musings. This book gives the reader an inside look at the mind of the genius McConaughey as he sings his way through life.
Review
I read through this collection slowly, making sure to pause and reflect each time something hit me. You see, I have been digging deep into my faith recently with everything going on in the world, and It’s nice to see some famous folks out there still aren’t totally crazy.
There are SO many incredible poems and quotes all throughout this book, if I shared them all here I might be doing you, and Mr. McConaughey a disservice. However, there are a few that stuck out to me as being incredibly profound, and I’d like to share those with you.
First of all, the prayer (left) “Today, may I be available to see myself as God sees me, and faithful enough to believe it.” I mean WOW. This is one of the most SIMPLE prayers I’ve ever seen and yet it is SO extremely powerful! Do you understand that God sees you as worthy of sacrifice? God became human and sacrificed himself that we might be freed from our sins – isn’t that incredible!!! And He would love for us to believe in ourselves the way he believes in us.
BACK TO THE FUTURE (middle) – This one made me really stop and think. It also reminded me of a song by Nas called ‘Rewind‘ (if you haven’t heard it you really should!). “We pray so we can sin” and “We leave so we can go” sound simple enough, but keep reading – “We give back to steal the show”. This is where I went – hold on or “let him cook” as the kids say – he’s on to something here! Again in the next verse “We find reason then ask why” and “We get ahead to slow down”. To me these are all beautiful ways to illustrate that we all live in a cycle, and we sometimes do things for contradictory reasons.
Examples
– “We give back to steal the show”
The point in giving back is to be selfless, but we often use it as a means to be selfish
– “We find reason then ask why”
No matter how many times we find reason, we will always continue to ask why. And I think that’s a good thing! Proverbs 8 is all about the search for wisdom, and I feel like my journey in life is often about finding wisdom.
KARMIC GRACE (right) – Even though others “may do no good unto us” we should consider the consequences not of man, but of God. If we think that people will do no good unto us whether we’re good or not we might be right. But if we think if we do no good unto others certainly God won’t be angry because the others do no good unto us as well – you would absolutely be mistaken. God wants us to “do unto others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31)
Overall, I’m so glad I picked this book up physically. This is something I will turn back to many times and re-read as there are lessons upon lessons hidden in these pages.