a poem on prayer
I heard this poem in a UU service, and have been thinking about it since then. I think it reflects some of my thoughts, especially about those times when I pray with patients/families, even though I do not share their belief system, even though I am not sure what we are praying for or what it means. For me there is something very sacred about the moment of prayer in which all participants are transformed, but transformed into what, I do not know. I think there are a million theological questions and issues over prayer, but there is something about that is quite magical when it is genuine and heart-felt.
On Prayer
You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.
~ Czeslaw Milosz ~
On Prayer
You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.
~ Czeslaw Milosz ~