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Prayer. What is it? How do we pray? Are there right words to use when praying? Today, is today a day for adoration, confession, thanksgiving, or supplication? Who do I pray for? Does it matter how long I pray?

Prayer. Actually, in scripture and in the lives of the faithful, we see that prayer isn’t just one style. Prayer of the heart may use few words or none. All that is required needed is an attentive heart. A heart that is attentive to the world, yes the world, around you: locally, globally, nationally, and/or personally. Don’t think too so much and pray.

Where do we begin? How do I begin? How about this piece of advice: One of my favorite writers and theologians, Thomas Merton, taught that simply walking with God is one of the surest ways of developing a life of prayer. Prayer such as this unveils the presence of God everywhere; God in the everydayness of life, in the body, in nature, and in the people we encounter. Pray.

All occasions are opportunities for prayer: preparing a meal, working in the garden, reading a book, taking a walk in the woods, playing with children or with your pets. Prayer is not about words or postures, though these aspects are important. Prayer is about living with a sense of God’s presence in all our lives.

Here comes a bold statement. The real purpose of prayer…is the deepening of personal realization in love, the awareness of God (even if sometimes this awareness may among to a negative factor, a seeming ‘absence’).

Prayer then not just a formula of words, or a series of desires springing up in the heart—it is the orientation of our whole body, mind, and spirit to God in silence, attention, and adoration. So pray. However you need to or want to. But you need to. We all do.

Need help? Think about this poem by Mary Oliver titled, “Praying.”
“Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.”


Prayer. By reading this, you’ve already done it.


Be well.

[Adam Quine, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lincoln]

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