(dam at Rockbridge grist mill)
LIFE PRAYERS -- now praise and gratefulness:
Over the course of our life we continually offer up prayers -- whether we call them that or not -- prayers spontaneous and urgent, prayers written and thoughtful, prayers of petition and of peace. These are our life prayers. They express our deepest intentions, values, and wishes. Their scope and beauty are in evidence throughout the pages of this book, LIFE PRAYERS from around the world. Now, in this final chapter, we turn to what has been called the very heart of prayer: praise and gratefulness.
In a world that puts great value on material acquisitions, progress, and power, why praise the Earth? Why give thanks? It has been said that praise and gratefulness complete creation. When our hearts receive the beauty of the world, then the circle of gifting is complete, and we become fully present to life.
This simple grace reminds us that the food we eat and the life we are given become a blessing when we are thankful. Our gratitude transforms the world from objects and mundane experiences to blessings -- it sacralizes the world. Our joy in the beauty of the Earth is an essential part of that beauty.
Prayers of gratitude and praise are a gateway through which this beauty enters our lives. They give us a common vision of the wondrous blue-green planet that is our home. We are born of the Earth. The Earth is our origin, our nourishment, our support, and the container of all spiritual revelation. Our spirituality itself has arisen from the spirituality of the Earth. We are totally implicated in one another's presence and identities.
Touched by gratitude we realize that we belong here, and in our mutual dependence we are freed to love this world wholeheartedly. It may be that the greatest gift we humans can give the rest of creation is our love and our heartfelt appreciation. Our love is as essential a part of life's give-and-take as the cycles of water and oxygen or any other nourishment flowing through the biosphere. And for millennia prayers and songs of praise have been offered up to celebrate the miracle of existence:
...I know nothing else but miracles .... To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, every cubic inch of space is a miracle, every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with miracles. Every foot of the interior warms with miracles. (Walt Whitman)
May our voices join in this lineage of prayer celebrating the ordinary miracles of our lives!
(except taken from LIFE PRAYERS, by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon, published by Harper One in 1996,)
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