What is prayer? We are told it is a solemn request for help or an expression of thanks to the Divine. Communing with and aligning our hearts and minds with the divine. (Thomas Merton-Trappist)
Sigmund Freud once said, “Religion is comparable to a child’s neurosis”. Prayer may be a part of this neurosis, a neurosis that gives us what we seek, answers, solutions and meaning in life. To be a child makes all things simpler and truer, seeking to educate and understand ourselves, with the advice and direction given to us by family, friends and those who are wise. Prayer inspires life.
Prayer can be very abrupt,
asking for this, and asking for that.
Perhaps selfish to be true,
prayer presents possibilities to you.
Like the sun in the morning lifting high into the sky,
like incense floating to our perceived divine.
How different a prayer can be challenges us all,
as what is on our minds says it all.
What is prayer to me is a daily thing,
I walk and talk to “J” like He’s my friend.
My issues and concerns I unload upon Him,
and I listen to my thoughts again and again.
Is prayer essential to the human race?
Can we live without it, bear witness to our disgrace?
The world is full of fear, hunger and strife,
people we don’t know are helplessly dying.
The pain of every kind has conquered our world my friend,
illness, loneliness and intolerance are felt again and again.
What are we lacking, a solution perhaps,
that all the mayhem is human my friend?
Prayer gives us two things so needed today,
the ability to understand ourselves clearly,
and Hope that can overcome even pain and distress.
Hope is the gift of the divine we must seek out at best.
Pray gives us a chance to talk to ourselves,
like therapy, allowing us to realize a significant thing,
That the evils of the world are created by our fellow men,
but also unknowingly by you and me.
A solution to our peril rests solely upon our shoulders,
as the divine inspires humanity with Hope to touch eternity clearly,
prays to lift us up, encourages selfless acts and empathy for all,
for without prayer the meaning of life is truly shallow for all.
Prayer demands Less of me, why, want or I’ll cry,
but to lift up a collective expectation of humanity’s hopeful desires.
To think about the beauty, and magnificence of our world and people as one,
would surely demand a prayer from you and me to lift up and inspire us,
as we live in a world connected to eternity in time.
Steven Kaszab
Bradford, Ontario
skaszab@yahoo.ca
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