There is Less than Nano-seconds in a Prayer

While I listen to my daughter watching a movie across the room I relish her laughter.  At the same time I am confounded by the rising music and background noises that fill the movie scenes to grab my attention.  Even so, within me a moment has just occurred that I feel the consciousness of an internal space.  I can best describe this as silence.  This black-hole of internal space opened even while all these noises were invading every thought I was trying to put aside.  That moment of open internal space; that space holds my prayer, my connection with greater forces.  That moment, in that space, I feel an internal settling that surrounds and blesses us.  It is a prayer.  And so here I revise my earlier description.  What I called silence a moment ago held a prayer.   It is a prayer and it occurred in that nanosecond of silence. I felt complete gratitude.  It was barely noticeable.  Except that I am listening.

Ego Busting

I’m not sure if we give prayers or they are received for us to express.  But prayer is felt as much as expressed.

When done “right”, ego is not in the equation.  I love Jay Leeming’s poem, Ego. (shared here without permission – please visit his site.  And his book of poetry Dynamite on a China Plate is full of poems I can quote.  This is a wonderful work!)

Ego

Getting rid of your ego

is like trying to throw away a garbage can.

No one believes you’re serious,

and the more you yell at the garbagemen

the better the neighbors

remember your name.

Wrestling with ego is always a losing proposition; ego wins.  The trick seems to be to release the ego, or to even forget one has an ego.  It seems a delicious unaware self quietly steps in and does the things that come naturally.  These are the things we are meant to do.

In prayer a wonderful lack of ego can exist.  The gatekeeper that is the ego can be given permission to stop away for coffee, or a potty break, or to go stretch it’s legs.  While the ego steps away, or fades from sight, or is forgotten the gates are open and the soul and god are allowed to connect.  Sometimes I hope for a a connection – as lovers, as family, yet always as one.