Once I thought prayer was magic:
If I pray hard enough
God will give me what I desire.
I was young and did not yet know
grief and despair.
I grew in knowledge of sorrow and joy,
and found no being who could
change the course of the many things
that bring us suffering, as was told, when
once I thought prayer was magic.
Nor did outward prayer give me
what I yearned for, which may
conflict with another’s longing.
Who does this being listen to?
If I pray hard enough,
I am told, if I am good enough,
follow the rules, listen to authority,
learn to be pure like the saints,
deny myself,
God will give me what I desire.
Then I learned to go within:
to know prayer as silence,
to focus, allow, listen, sit in peace,
open to universal wisdom. Not taught to me when
I was young and did not yet know:
the connection is within the seed of the divine inside of me.
All consciousness, open to love, forgiveness, and grace
changes me; I then join with others as
we open to joy, and ease that which is our
grief and despair.
(Thanks to WP friend, David, for his teaching of a ‘cascading’ poem.
“It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without heart.”
Mahatma Gandhi
“Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.”
St. John Vianney
“God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.”
Mother Teresa
