IV

When to Sing, When to Listen

"After the wind there was an earthquake...after the earthquake came a fire,
but the Lord was not in the (wind or earthquake or) the fire.
And after the fire came a gentle whisper."
I Kings 19:11-12

In the not so distant past my youngest daughter began private voice lessons under the tutelage of a lady who has some renown and a significant amount of talent. Lynda asked Maggie when she had begun to sing; the reply was as unique as the teen-aged girl who offered it: "I have always sung." This is not an exaggeration to any degree worth discussing since my memories of walking in the bedroom to lift Maggie from her crib at a very early age are colored with the sound of her infant voice singing with unintelligible words but very clear melody. She was and has always been a cheerful person with music born in her soul. She responded to the rock music of her older siblings even before she was born; and she sings through her life with her own unique style.

Some, more than others, live attuned to music; all of us respond to one form of music or another. Even those who have hearing deficiencies, even some with profound loss, often sense the music through other means. One recent winner of a major beauty pageant danced to music she did not hear, but sensed the vibrations through her feet. She now receives some critical acclaim for her expressive talent. In ceremonies from every tribe, culture and tradition on earth, music is an integral component expressing worship, war, celebration, sorrow, shared events and the entire range of human experience. Those who have little or no gift for musical performance certainly have the facility to listen and to appreciate to some degree. Love songs from one country find their way across oceans and continents almost at the speed of light, it seems, to awaken response from hearts that do not always understand the words of another language. The dialect of the heart needs no translation. Because we share the human condition, our desire and ability to love, we share the need to communicate that love through whatever available means we find.

We sing our love songs; we play them on instruments when we have them available and can do so. We give our hearts to those we love through the medium of melody and harmony, with feeling requiring no words to articulate its truth. We turn on the radio as soon as we start the motors of our cars as we commute to and from work, as we navigate through the many demands of our lives, listening to and singing with the songs we hear, keeping in mind the treasure of our loves through the responsibilities of living. We give our love by whatever means and at any time we are able to do so.

He who inhabited a special place in my life during a two-year span and remains a part of my heart has sung to me, has shared recorded music conveying mutual significance, has spoken his welcome words; yet, the moments dearest to me in the times of we spent together were those of two occasions during which no words were necessary. The first was an evening when he sat at his piano and played his love without the words. As his heart spoke through the music from his hands, I heard the heart's gentle sonata weaving its harmony above the sound of the piano. We both knew the words to the love songs he played; his music was gift, a tribute and a memory I treasure.

Another evening we needed no music, required no audible love songs, spoke no words. This one magic hour we received the gift of God's love wrapped around our hearts, uniting us in the radiant light at the end of a spectacular, vivid rainbow. Nature sang her song of love to us in color so bright, beauty so fragile, yet eternal in our memories. The evening was rare for us because we had little time to share, such were the demands of profession and commitments. We dined in an ordinary restaurant, drove down ordinary streets of the town and conversed through the ordinary subjects of two people with active, demanding lives and a multitude of interests and concerns. Yet, the hours we spent together were anything but ordinary. A sudden, mild storm in the early evening, just before sunset, did nothing to dampen our time together or dim the light between and around us. As we stopped on a hilltop, the sun broke through the heavy clouds, painting a double rainbow, the inner one of incredible color arching to its golden end where we stood. Shekinah painted the very air with her love and a promise of future and commitment to life. We can stand in our memories on that hillside, raising a toast with Tevye, "L'Chaim!" - TO LIFE!

Through all the difficulties with which we struggled, challenges of little time and complications defying description, we sang our love song without deliberate melody, yet with a symphony of mutuality and unconditional love, reflection of God's great, generous, unifying love. Our love song did not require proximity or even mechanical means of communication; such was the music binding our souls beyond the limits of time and place. We heard the gentle sonatas, the resounding symphonies in the stillness of the night when we did not sleep for the reaching of our hearts towards each other. Our spirits knew the presence of shared love and communicated the reality of its power even through the clamor of all the complicated issues in our lives. While our lives have gone other directions, the music remains, blessing our separate futures because we touched, for a time, the heart of God together and now can share an increased ability to love with others in our lives.

When and How We Sing

The "when" to sing our love is bound inescapably from the "how" of expressing our commitment to another. We who consider carefully the effect of our words on those to whom we speak also must realize there are appropriate moments for silence to allow the other to sing the love song from the heart, instances when the already-uttered thoughts require time for processing and integration. There are opportunities to deepen our communications, to speak our truths and our love, possibilities we may lose forever if we are not aware of the power emanating from deliberate stillness. There are other times in which no one need speak or sing at all. No one need express a single thought. A glance, a touch of the hand, a hug, all of these can sing more clearly, more articulately than any words. At some moments we sing our love most clearly and effectively when we do not sing at all, when we allow the moment to flow without effort to focus attention. As I recall that incredible rainbow, that eternal moment of unmatched loveliness, I know we would not have heard the love song from the very air we breathed had we not stood in silence and allowed it to intertwine its symphony of sight into our souls.

When and how we sing the love we hold in our souls may come in response to a moment's need. One of the more loving comments a friend made to me some years ago was in during an intense discussion, the subject of which I no longer recall. Those were the days when I still demanded perfection of myself and was prone to attempting to orchestrate every event, leaving as little as possible to chance. My friend's answer to my frustration of the moment was, "And five years will pass." I remember pausing suddenly in the venting of my criticism and irritations as her wisdom placed everything in perspective. Her love for me came so gently, not criticizing my unreasonableness, but reminding me life would continue and no great disaster would occur if I could not achieve control over the relatively minor situation over which I was fuming. Her song of love was short, profoundly simple and fitting to the moment; obviously she was correct since the issue at hand has faded from my memory completely.

In moments such as these and in far more critical events we learn the integrity of love requires trust, faith in the love of those in our lives and in One beyond ourselves, faith our unselfish love will overcome our fear. There was a long night many years ago during which the song of my mother love for my infant son was stilled into an Abraham moment of willingness to sacrifice my hopes and dreams for his life. This story of Abraham and his young son had troubled me. How could God ask a father to sacrifice his only son when that child appeared to be the living covenant for the future of the Hebrew people?

Abraham and Sarah were both elderly when the child, Isaac, was born to them. I do not believe, and never have, that a loving, generous God causes pain or suffering. How could this God demand the life of Isaac? I realized I had never understood what appeared to be Yahweh's cruel request to Abraham for sacrifice of the beloved only son Isaac until I equated that event with the reality of my son's life as it hung in delicate balance with no medical reason to believe he would survive the night. Abraham's offer of sacrifice became somewhat easier to understand through that night, but not much.

The night in the pediatric intensive care unit where my son lay, struggling to breathe the oxygen-rich air of the equipment in which the nurses had placed him is as vivid today as it was then. I have always been thankful his doctor, a father of six children, was honest with me at the beginning. We knew, Dr. Unkel and I, the reality of Bill's survival was not in our hands; we could do nothing but entrust this five week old child to hear the songs of love and respond as he would. I stood beside the incubator through the night singing only one melody into the darkness, one prayer of complete faith in Creator Spirit's, who first and last was responsible for the life of this little boy. I entrusted his life into that great love, asking nothing for myself, offering nothing but the child whom God loved more than I could ever hope to love. Even had I believed I had the right of control over this infant's life and choices of his future, it would have had no effect, other than one of creating more fear and anxiety. I stood with Abraham as he laid Isaac on the mountain-top altar, trusting Jehovah to accept his willingness to sacrifice the love who was his dream wrapped in a beloved son, the future of a nation.

When and how we, as parents, sing our love for and to our children can often be distorted by our forgetfulness that these persons of the next generations must assume control of their lives, apart from the controls we attempt to place on them. This is no more startlingly apparent than when we finally understand we have no more effect over our children's longevity than we do of anyone else. We conceive these children's bodies; we do not create their souls. We nurture them into life; we do not fashion their minds. Any more than it is appropriate for us to attempt control of any other person, we have no authority to exercise power over our children beyond wise parenting through the years until they are prepared to assume full responsibility for their lives. Thoughtful discipline, measured trust and increasing freedom appropriate to the ages and abilities of our children are the milieu of a wise parent. There is no right of ownership involved. Many contemporary love songs, many of the love songs we sing in our lives, seek to manipulate. Perhaps, we love best and most purely when we learn we love best with open arms and hands, just as we sing best with open lungs and relaxed muscles.

A few months more than seventeen years later I sat in the grandstand at the high school athletic field and watched Bill, as valedictorian, lead his class of somewhere near eight hundred young people across the field. In his customary understated approach to any honor he has ever earned, Bill had not mentioned he would be performing this function. He wears his achievements lightly and sings the love song of his life with grace, humor and humility. He hears the love song of freedom, for a parent's purest love gives the child freedom to receive and to respond, freedom to be. While this is not without applied discipline and, one hopes, appropriate expectations, there is a necessary balance of parental hopes with the child's right to pursue his or her dreams. Loving our children, as with loving anyone, requires our respect for them, our seeking to facilitate their growth and maturity completely apart from our wishes. These are the parents' love songs, melodies often filled with the most intricate chords and rhythms.

Singing With Compassion

When we choose to speak or sing our love for another, how we choose to give that love voice, often can require courage we are not certain we possess in plenitude enough for the challenge of honesty love songs embody. There is an element of profound clarity in mature love recognizing the beloved's reality and choosing to love the whole of that person. Perhaps, he is bald or skinny or has a pot belly or snores loudly enough to drown out a passing freight train. Perhaps, she has a crooked nose or big feet or a laugh that would make a hyena cringe or the worst taste in dress he has ever seen. However, when he sings in the shower she thinks he is a new version of Caruso, and when she smiles the sun comes out from behind the clouds. She can suggest with gentleness there is a new treatment possibly to help him to sleep more restfully without the frequent sleep interruptions often accompanying snoring problems, the suggestion she would sleep better if he would consider exploring the possibility. He can give her the opportunity at much- longed-for voice lessons for she loves to sing, and the vocal assistance might enable her to achieve modulation to make her laughter more musical. We begin to learn God loves us with all the crookedness, dark circles under our eyes and weary impatience. Can we learn to love any less?

Events occur, circumstances come into play, and we must approach these with the ones we love and find creative, healthy and caring methods to resolve. We must choose the love songs we sing with care and offer them with, perhaps, no words at all. We must have the courage to pick up the music, sing the words of integrity and pure motivation. These are not always minor misunderstandings, best treated with openness, patience and readiness to forgive and to ask forgiveness; these are often issues of serious, potentially critical proportion. Out of the need to solve thorny issues of relationship, unhealthy or addictive behavior patterns, or unresolved conflict has come the phrase "tough love." These are the love songs most difficult to sing in harmony and at the appropriate moments. These are the love songs demanding our efforts to bring accord out of dissonance, arising from well-tuned instruments of gentleness and patience. Yet, we must pick up those instruments, play the score, sing the words as written, albeit with some latitude for interpretation. Not to follow these songs to their conclusion, painful though the singing of them may be with long phrases pulling the air from our lungs, is not to trust the power of love giving and receiving with open eyes and hearts. Frequently, too, those who must hear this music, minimalist in style and performance as it often should be, will find the melody difficult to isolate from the clamor of distorted emotion or reason. It can evoke pain in the hearing, but the resolution of the chords brings peace.

When Prayer Begins

Opportunity for prayer arises from such moments in our lives, from the ordinary events and the significantly memorable or tragic instances of daily living for each of us. Just as none of us sings in tune, harmoniously with others or with instruments without practice and persistence, productive prayer requires intentionality and discipline. Most of us will turn in times of confusion, need, sorrow, loneliness or any other of those anguished moments of living we all experience with a prayer of immediacy. Somehow, though, unless more thought and deliberate involvement of one's mind and heart follow that plaintive cry, this is a cry for rescue more than a song of love and trust. Our prayers only become love songs when we sing from desire to share our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our gratitude and our love as well as our needs, our pain and our distress.

Who of us remembers to turn in gratitude to this God when we manage to get through another day, when we see the love and trust in the eyes of a child, when the laundry is folded and put away? Our God is one who gives freely and from love, knowing our frequent forgetfulness and ingratitude. Yet, can we not remember the God who laughs with us in the brightness of a new day, who sets the birds singing to rejoice with us, who wraps love around us with rainbows and roses, who weeps with us through the thunder and lightning of sorrow and loss, is a personal God who will accept our deliberate and heartfelt thanks with joy?

The consideration of the appropriate place of prayer in the moments of daily ordinariness is one I find difficult to approach and to examine in detail from the aspect of answering the "when" of prayer. It is, by far, easier for me to ask when is it not suitable to pray. I cannot imagine life lived through the day without prayer, without awareness of the constant, abiding, all-encompassing love of Creator Spirit. Yet, I know many do not have that conscious mindfulness. Truly, I am fortunate to have had a childhood blessed with early awareness of prayer colored with the beauty of music.

As I have paused to consider the place prayer has in my life, I do not recall a time prayer has not been integral to my spirituality, even from childhood. In moments of perplexity, confusion, success, sorrow, rejoicing: in all of these, and more, prayer is a love song I remember singing very early. My intense concentration in the areas of contemplation and prayerful meditation, the exposure to the Benedictine style of prayer encompassing every moment of the day has influenced and focused my prayer life throughout the years since my late teens.

When Our Prayers Touch Other Lives

Just as clearly as I recall the power prayer, the music of the love songs, has played throughout my life, I think of the moments when I have exercised quite vigorously my choice not to pray, not to sing, not to speak. One vivid example stands out from my adolescence, although I believe my youth at the time does not diminish the value of the learning. This memory also serves to remind me when inadequately expressed ideas, poorly conceived attitudes can do a great deal of harm to those who rely on us for wisdom and guidance. Ill-considered love songs, much like the hauntingly beautiful singing of the Sirens who led Ulysses onto the rocks where he was shipwrecked, can perpetrate immense damage of which we might not even be aware.

The benefit of what could have been a lifelong injury to my faith came when I realized our prayer requests will always be answered, although we do not choose the time or the manner. I understand, while my motivation might be fitting and clear to me, I may mistakenly express ideas and attitude without adequate explanation and foundation possibly creating confusion, at the least, or even misleading others. It is critical for us to sing our love songs and speak our words with discretion, prudence, attentive to those to whom we speak and aware of how they might be responding. Our freedom to sing and to pray must be responsible, our souls ever sensitive to those who hear our message.

Because of a variety of circumstances my eyes were not straight, beginning during my very early childhood, corrected by surgery, then again in the later grade-school years, despite the early corrective surgery and glasses, the only recommended treatments at the time. By the time I was twelve years old I had become very shy, withdrawing more into music and books, although I remained close to my brothers and to a few friends who accepted me readily regardless of the fact my right eye was prone to wandering off on its own track. This was a time when television evangelists were becoming popular. The combination of my extreme sensitivity, my pain at being "different," my easily understood desire my eyes would again be straight, the atmosphere in which my family worshipped in church, it is not difficult to comprehend the effect the evangelists had on my prayers. I was, without doubt, too young and inexperienced, too ignorant yet, to realize the theology of these well-meaning people as weak, even mistaken in focus, at times. Prudence and discretion took a back seat to all the other apparently more desirable, perceived benefits such style of prayer these people exhibited.

After several years, through my teens and into more mature understanding of the realities of my physical situation, I refused even to mention my eyes when I prayed. I still did not know Shekinah, Mother that she is, knows when the time is best for her children to receive the desires of their hearts, when they will benefit the most. At times I was angry at the continuing pain, at the frequent questions, at a God who could allow me to be so different. When my religious superiors in the convent expressed concern about the issue of being different, I received their words with resignation, some frustration, but no real surprise. I had already learned to believe I was unacceptable for any number of reasons and in numerous circumstances. It would take many years, a great amount of love and softening to know I was wrong. At some moments through these adolescent years into early adulthood, I refused to pray at all. I am certain Creator Spirit regarded my youthful impatience and vehemence with tolerant, amused love, knowing eventually I would get over being irrational.

Not too many months after I was married I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist at my new husband's request. I did not believe the answers I had heard for ten years would be any different this time; but I went anyway. I had learned significant realities through those years of waiting, one of which I still struggle to use effectively, that of patience. My prayers from all the teen-age years did not go unanswered; I had two surgical procedures to correct my optic muscle problems within the following three years.

As I have recounted my feelings and thoughts of those long years of waiting, there is another valuable product of my pain I have learned to share. When we sing our love songs, even those of frustration and anger, in honesty and openness, much can result than we could not possibly expect. Perhaps, from the pain and confusion of my adolescence and young adult years of being "different" I have learned compassion, to recognize and value the need we all share to be accepted in dignity and respect.

While some of the songs we sing can be misinterpreted, other melodies can heal and bring new beauty and light into darkness and pain. I learned and have become passionately committed to empowering those who feel powerless, to facilitating the freedom of those who believe themselves to be enslaved by fear or pain or abusive living situations, to loving those who believe themselves unlovable, to accepting and celebrating those who do not understand their own incredible value and beauty.

There have been many times when I have stood with closed fists, refusing to open my hands to the gifts God holds out; I have kept my voice silent and refused to sing, refused to listen to the love song whispering above the storms, even attempted to deny that which I believe and know. I have, at times, grown weary of constant challenge, frequent change, angry at circumstances over which I have no control, not always understanding, even so, I could, in some inexplicable manner, affect those circumstances by my attitude alone. Yet, never has my refusal to sing or to hear the music of prayer indicative of the style of my life continued for longer than brief moments. Any more than not being able to play or to sing music, a large part of my life since I have memory, I cannot imagine a life without focus towards the love who is God. I turn towards the radiance of that light as a plant turns towards the sun. I listen without conscious effort for the music and whistle its melody as I walk down the street. While the harmonies may seem dissonant or even nonexistent at times, my life is more opera than lecture. Indeed, my friend Marcia said to me once I do not march to a different drummer, I dance through life to music of the universe only a few others hear.

A Time To Be Silent

There is a serious lack in many public school venues today troubling and saddening to me. With an attitude of "back to basics because we must not raise the taxes" controlling budgets in many school districts, our children lack the opportunities many of us enjoyed: to learn, to appreciate, to see, to hear for no other reasons than the enrichment of living and the enhancement of thinking processes. Many of us forget how to listen in the noise of our lives, and many of our children are not learning active listening skills engaging of the heart and the mind through the ears. We forget there is healing and beauty in our silences when we allow others to speak or to sing or to play their instruments for us. We neglect our souls in the clamor of sound so powerfully present in our culture.

The first lines of "Desiderata" remind us of the need to possess our souls in peace amid the noise of this world and the immeasurable value of silence. We turn on the television when we walk into a room, or we turn up the volume on the stereo to drown out the whisper in our souls crying for peace, for stillness, for solitude. We walk along the shore with jagged cliffs on one hand and crashing surf on the other; yet, we do not hear the beauty of the waves, the cries of the gulls or the wind blowing over the cliffs because we listen to talk shows on the earphones of our portable radios.

Our prayers all too frequently reflect our inability to be still, to know God is. The story of Elijah, one of the great Hebrew prophets, has become significant to me as I consider the wisdom and value of silence in prayer. Elijah fled to the desert and into the mountains to preserve his life following his successful defense of his faith against four hundred prophets of Baal. Eventually, he came to a cave where Yahweh directed him to go where they would meet together. There came a great wind, followed by earthquake and fire. The story recounts Elijah's realizing God was not in any of these powerful events. Then there came a whisper in the silence, Jehovah present, and Elijah hid his face, asking Yahweh what was to be requested of this single prophet of God next.

We cannot hear that whisper in the night if we do not stand still and listen. We seek for answers and purpose in the haste and turmoil of our world. We attempt to sing to the storms and our voices are lost in the whirlwinds. The Psalmist reminds us, "I have stilled and quieted my soul." In the stillness, in the quiet of the cave after the cataclysmic storms and earthquakes of our lives, we may listen to the silence and know Yahweh is present still; once the wind has quieted to the barely moving breeze, we shall stand in the light of love and hear the song of the centuries still singing in our hearts today. We will know again God has brought us out of our souls' slavery to a promised land because we are precious treasure, because we are Shekinah's creation of love, to be joyful reminder.

We cannot hear this song from a blaring stereo, from the concert stage, in the middle of a cheering crowd at a football game, or from the band in parade. We hear the whisper of God's love song only when we listen attentively, when we open our eyes to the evidence laid out before us, as we review the journeys up the trails of all the challenging mountains making up the pathways of our lives. We study in silence the events, the influences, the journeys of our lives, our choices, our hopes and still unfulfilled dreams. We recognize, if our hearts are open to the touch focusing our attention, not one moment of our lives is without purpose. There is something we may learn and gain from every opportunity; God moves in our lives even when we are unaware, unheeding, deaf to the music, blind to the beauty.

Our prayer is a love song only when we realize it is a duet, never a solo, for living love is never love without someone on whom to focus the commitment of one's heart and mind. We sing the melody today; tomorrow we add the harmony, underscoring the sweetness of the song or adding the descant, sending the song soaring. We never sing alone when we sing God's love and our response to that eternal reality. How can we pray, then, expecting to speak all the words, not allowing ourselves the silent moments in which we receive the gift of love into our hearts? Do we so often shut out the song echoing in the depths of our hearts because to listen to it will invite response? What will God's love song ask of us we are hesitant to hear?

Any of us who has committed to love, whether in marriage, parenthood or other relationships, knows very well this loving commitment changes our lives. The opening of our hearts, the invitation, mutually given and accepted, to intimacy of a loving relationship alters our perceptions, demands new response, invites creativity and growth. When we embark on a committed prayer journey, when we begin to listen to God's love song, we hear a new call, experience increased sensitivity to those areas where love is not allowed to touch in our world, grow in awareness of the need to act with God in redemptive, healing love.

Learning to be still in prayer is a practice expecting desire, time, discipline and effort. The dichotomy of prayer is, even after years of effort, distraction and lack of concentration can be just as much a problem as they were in the beginning, sometimes even more. As a musician, I know technical skills improve with practice. As one who prays, I fight constantly with the same difficulties plaguing me always. Stilling the racket of fear, quieting the clamor of business, silencing the tumult of wishes and dreams, all these are the challenges of singing the duet of my prayer's love song. We who must function within a world of multitudinous demands of family, work, social commitment, and the variety of other activities we invite into our lives must also, if we are to find purpose and value in this whirlwind, make time to be still, time to pray.

Taking Time for Prayer

This is the "how" of prayer as we also struggle with the "when" of a consecrated life of prayer. How do we make time in an overloaded schedule? How do we find that quiet solitude we require for meaningful prayer? How do we shut the door at a regular time each day and tune the strings of our souls' violins or cellos? As I sat on the patio wall one morning, beginning my prayer for the morning, the noise of cars on the street nearby, the voice of a neighbor in the next apartment complex, the cool breeze quickly chilling me, all of these distracted me and reminded me my year on the mountain had been so delightfully quiet.

Although prayer is much easier, with fewer outward distractions without the intruding noise of our society when one is on a remote mountain; it is never simple to ignore the noise within our souls, the pressure of responsibilities and obligations standing at the door much like our children who wait outside the bedroom door, saying to us, "Mom, are you done praying yet?" Choosing to pray when there are fewer societal obligations, when there is no family sharing one's abode unquestionably requires less effort; however, there are other distractions, other interests seeming to intrude into time that can be given to prayer.

When to pray can be subject to all the demands of family, friends, professional and social commitments, or it can precede all such demands. How to pray can be complicated by an environment so filled with auditory stimulation, crowded by the congested population of many of the localities in which we live, or it can be a choice of a quiet corner or a favorite place in the park, a walk down the street or even a drive alone into the country. We are as free to choose when and how we pray, when and how we sing our love songs as we are to pray or not to pray at all. It is a matter of priority, the degree of commitment, the level of understanding of how prayer affects our lives by its presence or lack in our lives. I can list numerous events, answers to prayer witnessed in my life. None of these has any meanings for those who do not pray.

The only invitation I know to learn for one's self the effects of prayer in one's life, is that urging from the women who ran from the empty tomb to find the grieving, frightened disciples, imploring them to go and see the tomb for themselves, look at the evidence that Christ was no longer there, he had risen and was among them once more. Come and see for yourselves. Only in the doing, in the opening of one's mouth and lungs to echo the timeless love from the heart in a new song, does the power and reality of prayer come to life. Only in beginning to pray with consistency and openness to possibility can its effects become manifest.

I pray before my day begins, often before I am fully awake since I am, by nature, somewhat nocturnal. Morning is not the most productive time of the day for me in a creative sense, but I have learned my day begins with clearer focus, at a more relaxed pace if I have given myself the gift of prayer before undertaking any other concern. So often, this half-hour, occasionally more and sometimes less, is truly a love song from Creator Spirit. Often, through pages of the Psalms or from various books of prophecy I read and meditate upon words of love, many times without deliberately designated intent. I know of no better beginning to any day than to hear I am loved, I am precious and treasured. It may rain outside my door, the traffic may be horrendous, the wind may blow, my nose might be cold, I may still want more sleep; but a day begun with a love song in the morning is a day touched by a rainbow.

Prayer at the end of my day often may be less formal, even as simple as a sigh of "Thanks for getting me through the day." Often I take the time for a long walk and find I shift mental and spiritual focus more readily. I am able to review the day, revisit conversations and events and assimilate whatever may have been of value through the events of the day. This is, quite often, a time of productive meditation and fresh insights for me. Prayer as I fall asleep is the moment I place those whom I love and myself into the abiding, certain love of "Daddy God," the habit of a lifetime as childlike and reassuring today as it was many years ago. I have confidence in the God who loves me manages all the issues in my life and the lives of those whom I entrust in faith to that love, those difficulties we cannot control, the pain we cannot ease alone, the perplexities we cannot solve without light and wisdom shared through the gift of love and patience. By entrusting all these cares, all the lives of those I love into the hands of the Mother who never sleeps, I know I may rest.

Because prayer is integral to the focus with which I live, I find I turn often in thought to whisper an inaudible "Yea, God!" or simply "Thanks." Situations arise, I meet with a variety of people; I seek wisdom, patience, sometimes increased endurance and compassion. I think often of the Christmas song of love from the little boy who could give the infant Jesus nothing but the gift of his love through playing his drum. Perhaps, to my mind, a task at work appears to have little purpose or value; perhaps the entire job assignment is a waste of time and effort. Doing ordinary things may have little apparent value; performing these tasks as prayer to honor the love who is God frames them in an extraordinary manner. My work, done in the spirit of gift of myself to the moment, becomes prayer; made holy, however humble it may be.

Much of this may appear to be pious nonsense in our sophisticated society. In an age typified by decreasing commitment from employer to employees, ongoing corporate downsizing, emphasis on speed and efficiency sacrificing form and beauty, an attitude such as mine may seem as archaic as a Model A. However, in this time during which so many of us have lost or forgotten the ability to appreciate simplicity, when many of us believe we need increasingly sophisticated electronic toys and, regrettably, forget how to converse with our neighbors over a cup of coffee, just as many wonder why their blood pressure elevates along with their weight and sleep decreases.

A life focused on prayer, deliberately chosen time and place to set one's self apart from the dizzying world in which we live, centers and reprioritizes the day, clarifies purpose and brings peace. In a culture often apparently as plastic as the cards so many use as currency to pay for their lives, prayer in the night when fears threaten to turn into the bogey man of our childhood, when pain wrests out any vestige of hope, leaving us hollow and hurting, prayer in the morning for courage to face another day, prayer at noon in thanks for restored health and faith; all of this...prayer...the love song between God and the individual brings back the reality of love, restorative for our vision without need to resort to radical ophthalmic surgery, clarification of the channels of our hearts' ears, again allowing us to here the whispers on the breeze speaking forgiveness for yesterday, strength for today and enduring love for always.
 




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