What is prayer?
It must be important, because of it is a house on stone,
And failing it is a den of thieves.
(If a Church does not produce prayer
then it is not a Church.
If prayer does not lead to the Church
then it is propositional, vain repetition.)
What is prayer?
We are sure we know, but we don't, still we probably pray
Despite our definitions.
Philosophy probably kills prayer.
Lots of things, ways, plans, goals,
Kill prayer.
Passion, I know,
kills prayer and more besides.
Collateral damage, you know.
What is prayer?
Not hell, for sure.
More than thought, for sure.
Before consciousness, I'm pretty sure.
Always before, I wonder, before always.
Prayer as an idea dissipates into some schoolyard fantasy
Like a military acronym like
Adore, Confess, Thanksgiving, Supplicate:
Or some other seminar
(with shiny notebooks, DVD & a nice hotel)
Which is okay for a while but not for time,
Not for interruptions like death
Ennui, and harder things like disappointment
When grownups learn to make the best of the Fall.
Or a 5 am import from South Korea,
A shouting, laughing, barking program, a mystery cult that only needs
A pit and a bloody bull, Dionysios, women aglow with Bacchus.
Aren't they tired?
No, prayer is before breath
And is not, thank God, exciting.
I am weary of excitement.
Prayer is water, prayer is air, prayer is light
And sunrise wind and rain in April regnant.
Prayer is thrown by the Sower into Chora,
hundred-folding from a widow's mite to sky-enfolding
Atlas oak, mountain-molding:
Prayer is divine history, story-changing,
from the particularity of Mystery
to the cosmos of Glory.
And prayer is calm and sublime, terror and peace,
Thunder behind the mountain stream and dawn behind the storm.
It grows, it leaps in eros to the wild quasar beyond the city fog,
Sapphire blaze it pierces the demon of Egypt and Babylon
And jumps into St. Michael's pennant,
Exultant.
I love God's Will.
It is a hard Will.
It is a Good Will.
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