Pray tell

Prayer has always confused me. Not so much because of who or what I’m praying to, but because of the context and while I’m drawn to prayer, it never feels right to me and the words often sound awkward. It’s like misheard song lyrics: You’re listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising and you sing the words but they come out like “There’s a bathroom on the right” instead of the actual lyric: “There’s a bad moon on the rise.” Or a line in The Eagles, Desperado get’s changed to, “You’ve been outright offensive, for so long now” instead of the correct “You’ve been out riding fences for so long now”

That might not make a lot of sense but if you’re like me in any way maybe it does. Regardless, it’s the way it is. So then I read this quote on a friend’s Instagram feed a few days ago and I liked it and the quote made sense to me.

From Kahlil Gibran: “For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? . . . When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet. Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.”

So there you have it.