Prayer is

Prayer issues from that threshold where soul and life flow, it is the conversation between desire and reality.  It is not to be reduced to the intermittent moments when we say prayers in words.  Prayer is a deeper and more ancient conversation within in.

                                                                                      John O’Donoahue,  Eternal Echoes. 187

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awake my tongue utters  prayers

they are not plentiful, nor profound

just “asides” to God along the way

“Help!”

“O crap!”

“Wow!”

“Thank you”

“That mountain, Lord, is beautiful”

“Please give him peace”

“Please help her forgive herself”

“Look at that river!  Amazing!”

“Quiet his voices”

“Calm her anxiety”

“Keep me going Lord”

“Look at that Sunset!  Good job God!”

just stuff like that

prayers along the way

awake my soul utters prayers

these are the deeper callings of my heart

these are the utterances that come forth from deep places

the yearnings, the pleas,

the despair,

the wild hope

those things that often have no words

sleep is prayer

my body is quiet

but my deeper self

liberated from the constraints of my consciousness

is freed to plunge deeply into the ooze of my inner grime

or soar wildly into those places where hope lives

all the while

discoursing with Sacred Presence

yes that is prayer

prayer is where I stand

one foot in the world where sacred rules

and all is possible

one foot in this world with it impossibilities

there I am

awake, or asleep

intentionally, or inadvertently

arguing, pleading

thanking, praising

quietly or loudly

on the threshold

where sacred meets profane

where soul and life flow

praying