Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Dear God,

What does it mean to pray?  I mean really, what does it mean? 

After reading Henri Nouwen and Richard Rohr this morning, I remembered prayer is an affirmation of life in the divine, not with, but in.  With is to suggest at times we are apart from one another.  In means we are inside the divine.  Why would I want to be with when I can be inside?

To dwell in the divine is to join the silence, the sacred silence, the beauty, sacred beauty, the love, the divine love, swimming in mercy and rising up in joy and praise.  It is recognizing prayer is more than muttering a few words even with intensity and sincerity.  It is acknowledging that I am part of you, not outside you, beside you, beneath you but inside you.  I am intrinsically connected to you and to all that is part of you.

In you, O God, dwells eternity, the cosmos, agape love, a deep, abiding living presence that embraces and holds, helps, guides, lifts up and surrounds.  When we even think of prayer we are acknowledging our part in you, your hope, your love, your mission and your grace.  When we drop our heads in sorrow, despair, anxiety, worry or fear, in prayer, we are slipping inside your merciful grace that heals, reconciles and assists us in living a life of faith and hope.  

And so I pray in you, Compassionate God, for the nation and the world, for all people recognizing and affirming they too live and dwell in you as beloved.

Holy, holy, holy

are you,

God of all people,

thank you

for reminding us

we are yours.

We do

not live alone

or apart

from you.

We do

not have

to be afraid,

haunted or tortured

by thoughts

too difficult

to deal with

because we

live inside

the Loving and Living God.

Thank you.

Yours, Andrea