My friend, Nick Santoro, wrote a letter to a couple of local and state publications in response to the Palestinian / Israeli war. He ended it with this pithy invitation:
"If you somehow pray, ask for forgiveness for our unending human barbarity and seek peace."
I took that in
As a kind of prayer.
I know this man prays
So it is not hard for me
To picture him ending his brief but ardent
Condemnation of the war
With a prayer for forgiveness.
Beautiful.
But forgiveness from whom?
I'm being rhetorical.
I know there are people who
Are almost offended by the idea of God.
But, knowing this man
As well as I do,
I don't think he is asking "God"
To forgive us.
But I'm not going to ask him
Who or what
He is asking forgiveness from.
I don't need to.
I want to talk about prayer.
What is prayer?
One thing I know is
Prayer is completely misunderstood.
People who pray,
On a regular basis,
. . . I think they know what it is.
People who don't pray
Or can't pray, don't get it.
They completely misunderstand it.
Of course they don't get it!
I'm not being smug here.
How much of the human race prays?
I think most people pray, in some form.
I feel for people who don't understand prayer
And I believe they are in a shrinking minority.
Most prayers are prayed in times of crisis.
People pray when they are scared
Or up against a wall.
Or they pray to supplement their chances
Of seeing something resolved
Or of passing the burden of living
On to some ethereal donkey!
And if something shifts for better or for worse
They don't think,
Oh, praying worked.
They don't remember that they prayed at all.
Crisis puts you in the moment.
When you are scared or in pain
That is all you have room for.
Prayer doesn't require space.
And it doesn't usually get instant results.
But does it work?
What do you think?
If you pray you might say, I think it works.
Or you might shrug and say
That's not the point.
So what is the point?
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