As Henri Nouwen (in his book, THE ONE THING NECESSARY) has noted, some consider prayer a weakness, or a support system that we use when there seems to be no other option. But this is only true when the God of our prayers is created in our own image and adapted to our needs and concerns. When prayer is authentic and God-centered, it enables us to reach out to God and to be pulled away from self-preoccupations. True prayer encourages us to leave familiar ground so as to enter into a new world beyond the confines of our mind or heart.
Praying is not an exercise to be limited to Sunday mornings or to a set period of time each day, insisted Nouwen. Praying is living. It is eating and drinking, action and rest, teaching and learning, playing and working. Pervading every aspect of our existence, prayer is the ever-evolving recognition that God is! God is wherever we are, always reaching out, always drawing us near, ever revealing an unending love for us.
Mother Teresa encouraged her sisters to remember that "every act of love is a prayer: Prayer is action in love and love in action is service." With that conviction, Mother Teresa led her sisters through the streets of the city, seeking out and reverently ministering to those who were regarded as the untouchables. When she bathed a leper, she was praying; when she fed hungry, crying babies, there she was praying too, not with words but with her hands, her heart and her selflessness.
If we could be convinced that all we are and all we do can be a prayer, how might that influence the way we are with one another? Might we be kinder? Perhaps we might be more thoughtful and less selfish, less angry, less critical, less sharp, more tender, more attentive, more giving.
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