Excerpts from the Thought Journals of Norman Elliott Anderson
Must prayer be repeated to be efficacious? What is the point of much prayer?
We have need of but one prayer in a lifetime. It is the deep-felt, thoroughly embracing, welling upwards prayer of eucharistia, of thanks to God for God's own being, within which our own beings and, indeed, all of creation live and dwell and have an existence in love, that is, in God's own joy of being. All other prayers, if they are true prayer, all other worship, if it is true worship, all repentance, if it is true repentance, and all purity, if it is true purity, are but expressions, albeit vital expressions, of this one deep prayer of humble praise. This is the prayer to be prayed without ceasing; this is the prayer of awakening and of awakened life; this is the prayer that is released upwards in sacred moments; this is the prayer of which our entire lives, if we live in faith, are the manifestation; this is the prayer that is the very meaning of life itself, for all of creation groans to lift its praise to the Creator and can do so only through the awakened consciousness.
The ceaseless stifling of this prayer is the one unforgivable sin, for it disallows oneness with both creation and the divine and it sets course for utter inward ruination of the gift of potential-for-justness that God has bestowed upon us, justness being understood not as legal justice but as a living out of goodness, as the practice of love, as cooperating in the inauguration of a new creation grounded in praise, as a quality of and oneness in divinity. The stifling of eucharistia is the negation of both faith and love, and it is the waste of conscious life. The very stones would cry out for this wasted precious gift, if only they were allowed.
How is this prayer of eucharistia possible? Because God and no other has made it possible, both by giving us the capacity for such prayer and by providing the wherewithal for such prayer to be efficacious, the wherewithal for being at one with the divine.
Written October 27, 1997
With revisions through November 7, 1997
Our God of joy,
you are also our God
in times of trouble.
And as we mouth these prayers
on behalf of our sick brother
our deepest prayer is but silence,
silence before you, O Lord.
And in that silence
which does not still
but lies beyond
our struggles,
our Why-Gods,
our pain,
our rage,
our death-wishes,
our distress
-- in that silence
we know nothing but trust,
that we are your creatures;
that whatever happens,
the purposes of your will
are greater than
our lives, our health, and our hopes;
and that we have nothing to do
but to offer our tears
as the sacrifice
of the friends and loved ones
to you.
And also our blessings,
forever and ever.
Amen.
Composed October 15-17, 1984 for a friend in the last stage of cancer
With revisions through July 19, 1989
Copyright ©1984-2004 by Norman E. Anderson
Posted, November 7, 1997; new url, January 28, 2004; last modified, January 28, 2004
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