I commend to you all the chapter in Barbara Brown Taylor’s, Altar to the World, about prayer. She describes her difficulty with prayer, and if she has problems, you and I shouldn’t feel so bad about our own sense of inadequacy in this area.
She turns to two monks who help her. The first is Brother David Steindl-Rast who wrote a book called gratefulness, the heart of prayer. Brother David said his book could be summarized in two words: Wake up! Borrowing the words of the poet Kabir, he explained:
Do you have a body? Don’t sit on the porch!
Go out and walk in the rain!
If you are in love, then why are you asleep?
Wake up, wake up!
You have slept millions and millions of years.
Why not wake up this morning?
Prayer, according to Brother David, is waking up to the presence of God no matter where we are or what we are doing. Think about it. When we are fully alert to whatever is right in front of us, when we are electrically charged about the gift of life, we are in prayer. Athletes talk about being in a zone or being in the moment. When we are” in the moment” in our day to day existence we are in prayer. We are in “the midst” of God. We are awake.
Editor’s Note: Our friend Luis Leon will give the benediction at the Presidential Inaugural. Congratulations! Perhaps, he will tell everyone to Wake up! Wake up!
Leave a Reply +