What is prayer?

What is prayer in a universal context? (Excerpted here.)

Prayer is a way of channelling and transmitting energy. It can bring joy, inspiration, healing, peace, exhilaration – and even bliss.

Dynamic prayer is…

 not a dull duty or a meaningless chore, but a vibrant, living power.

 not the deluded hope of someone crying out in desperation, but the practical solution to many problems.

 not an act of fear or false piety, but one of courage and true love.

If prayer were understood and practiced every day by more people, not only would those people’s lives change, but the whole world would change.

For particular faith orientations, I would simply zip out "energy" and zip in your understanding of the Divine. But if we all used our particularities to respond to the world's pains in a universal way, we could absolutely change the world!

And so, I offer a prayer for internal peace in hopes that together, we may transform pain to peace.

On the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind

the grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets in to you,

may a flock of colours,

indigo, red, green,

and azure blue

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

 

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

 

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.

 ...

beannacht - john o'donohue, Found in Anam Cara

I call this a flock of colours!