Monday, September 20, 2010

To pray is to notice

Artist: John Liston Byam Shaw
Image from Wikimedia Commons

My dear friend David in Montreal sent around the following this morning:

To pray is to take notice of the wonder, 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.

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel

If we take on board the classic understanding of the spiritual life as one of cultivating recollection, then not noticing is the very antithesis of spiritual practice, isn't it?
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 20, 2010 at 6:14 PM

    What a wonderful interpretation of the word "prayer"...I really, really like this. It's so much about awareness and so NOT about a litany of requests.

    annie c

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