To pray is to regain a sense of the Mystery that animates all beings. The Divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the Mystery by which we live. Who is worthy to be present to the constant unfolding of time amidst the meditation of mountains, the humility of flowers, wiser than all alphabets ... clouds that die constantly for the sake of God's glory. We are hating, hunting, hurting. Suddenly we feel ashamed of all our clashes and complaint in the face of the tacit glory in nature. It is so embarrassing to live. How strange we are in the world and how presumptuous our doings. Only one response can maintain us: GRATEFULNESS for witnessing the wonder; for the gift to our unearned right to live ... to adore ... to fulfill. It is GRATEFULNESS which makes the soul great.
~ from I ASKED FOR WONDER by Abraham Heschel with thanks to Kathy Harkins
Contemplation is that activity which situates us in an open space from which we can observe and contribute to the course of the universe ... that activity that delights in the well-being of all beings, that maintains the world in cohesion.
Old traditions used to say that wisdom consists in the knowledge of the Word. Give us this wisdom to be able to listen, to accept, to receive, to practice the hospitality of the words, paying attention, reacting consequently, being struck, touched, or caressed by the words that come to us. And let us also learn, in turn, to speak the right words, to affirm people who speak in a life-giving way, to recreate ourselves with our own words, because each of them sprouts from the same dynamism from which the plants grow, life unfolds, the universe comes into being. The word is word when it has a speaker, when it speaks about something; the word is word when it speaks with something. Give us, O Creator of Life, this depth, this awareness, and this tremendous joy to discover in ourselves that creative power that we can speak, emit, and receive living words, words of eternal life, words that come of the peace, of the silence, of the transparency of everything.
