My brothers and sisters of the Promise, I have always stressed both the importance of prayer as well as the universality of prayer.
Prayer is as necessary to the soul of Man as breathing is to his body.
There is no Man on earth - past, present, or future - who, having seen creation in a constant state of prayer, has never thought to look inward and gaze into the depths of that irresistible Silence within himself without asking the questions he knows in his heart he may only address to God.
No human heart is fool enough to resist the power of prayer. Indeed, all of creation around us - seen and unseen - exists in a constant state of prayer.
Therefore, no Man who has ever existed, exists or shall ever exist may ever truly claim to have
never prayed; to have never gazed with his heart into the depths of mysteries unseen, to have never experienced the buoyancy of hope, nor sensed the immediacy of faith, nor the timelessness of love.
What is common to all our prayer regardless of externals is that universal human desire to experience the reality of the Divine.
For prayer is a common human need. It is an attitude of the human heart.
In a faithful Republic, prayer is protected and this protection extends especially to all places of holy worship - temples, churches, synagogues, and mosques.
In prayer is Peace because its results are the works of peace.
(On Prayer)
AS A RULE, my precious Starshine,
prayer is always more
than the sum of all that we can see
with our unseeing eyes.
A soul in prayer is a heart present to its thought;
a walk across the vast, empty deserts within;
a reaching out to places beyond self;
a looking above from within.
It is silence contemplating Silence -
alone with the Alone.
It is a growing, persevering,
often times frustrating work
born of great necessity,
out of thy love of God.
Prayer is an ascent to the timeless,
anchored upon ageless truth,
of all the things we love
and of the Love that all created things hope for,
most especially by the truth of thy heart of love,
and of thy faith yearning to God in prayer.
The way to God is a crooked line,
for we are all but human.
But the way of prayer
makes this way certain.
For the soul that perseveres in prayer
shall indeed profit
from the LORD Who rewards all things,
great and small, known and known to God alone,
when done out of love and fear
of the one common Creator
of all common creation, seen and unseen.
It is not only important that we pray,
and persevere in this way, my precious friend,
in private, above all in community with each other,
it is simply necessary for human happiness
and the well-being of the still small truth that lives,
like a mustard seed,
inside of every self
for all things true and everlasting
depend on a heart of prayer.
Prayer is spiritual.
Therefore,
there are seasons within the soul that range
from sweet to dry or empty
but never must thy heart stay still,
you must gather when it needs gathering
and to know also when to look beyond these seasons;
you must be vigilant,
pressing on till you reach the heart of God
to lay your hopes in the LORD.
So prayer may be long
or it may be short
but it must always be timeless,
its substance is the motion
that lives like a love longing for Itself.
And when the Silence shall to your bowed heart speak,
It shall do so swift as light,
being Spoken without words
and instantly manifest to your soul as winged truth -
then you shall seek to forget all other things
but God and God alone.
And in God you shall range far,
self cognizant of self,
intimate with the Intimate,
to dwell in holy remembrance of all things.
For far may your wandering heart be
but to love and in Love
you shall forever remain
when you shall in prayer persevere.
So do so, dearest Starshine,
and say AMEN:
Know for thy own self
why the heart that believes
believes only because it prays.
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(produced 20090223)
Prayer is the first thing. It is also the last thing.
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