Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine. If i want transformation, but cant even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I'm aiming for, how will it ever occur? Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well considered intention. If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift.
So now i take the time every morning to search myself for specificity about what i am truly asking for. I kneel there in the temple with my face on that cold marble for as long as it takes me to formulate an authentic prayer. If i don't feel sincere, then i will stay there on the floor until i do. What worked yesterday doesn't always work today. Prayers can become stale and drone into the boring and familiar if you let your attention stagnate.
I'm making an effort to stay alert, I am assuming custodial responsibility for the maintenance of my own soul.
Taken from
eat pray love (chapter 58)
by Elizabeth Gilbert
Bloomsbury Publishing 2006
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