Thought For The Month - On Prayer
by Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)
You pray in your distress and in your need;
would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy
and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space,
it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer,
she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping,
until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air
those who are praying at that very hour,
and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught
but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose
than asking you shall not receive:
And if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others
you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.