My experience of prayer has been that dialogue between me and God -
an ongoing conversation triggered by complaints, questions, thoughts that arise in my mind and are tossed out there into the seeming Silence of God
whence I wait for a response.
And responses come sooner or later by way of subtle or major changes
in the circumstances and direction of my life or in the shape
of the people I meet or mistakes I've made.
Or then there's that sudden staleness of an idea I once prized that's been
made obsolete by a new idea - which turns out to be the old idea
experienced as more profound and truer than ever before!
Or often God's response seems to emerge from the space between the lines of whatever I am reading, be it Scripture, a poem, a novel, a billboard, or even something I myself am writing - as though even while I'm saying something it occurs to me that Someone's saying
something to me in what I just said!
Figure that out. Geoff Wood
Suppose you are reciting Psalms.
If all goes well, this may be a truly prayerful experience.
But it doesn't always go well. While reciting Psalms you might experience
nothing but struggle against distractions.
Later, you are watering your African violets.
Now, suddenly, the prayerfulness that never came during the prayers overwhelms you.
Your heart expands and embraces those velvet leaves,
those blossoms looking up to you.
The water and drinking become a give-and-take so intimate
that you cannot separate your pouring of the water
from the roots receiving,
the flower's giving of joy from your drinking it in.
Everything has meaning.
You are communicating with your full self, with all there is, with God.
Which was the real prayer, the Psalms or
the watering of your African violets?
Brother David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer
