A MESSAGE TO ALL AND AN EXTENSION NOTE IN MY MARXISM CLASS. Do not take prayer in a religious sense but take it as action, not even a religious action but simply action that is deserved of doing or what is in need to be done naturally or rightly. Let Prayer be Praxis and Praxis be Prayer. Let this quotation from R.W. Emerson enlighten us with this non-dualism of prayer and action and the de-religionizing of the concept of prayer. In what prayers do men allow themselves! That which they call a holy office, is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular commodity, - any thing less than all good; - is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end, is meanness and theft. It supposes a dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. AS SOON AS THE MAN IS AT ONE WITH GOD, HE WILL NOT BEG. HE WILL THEN SEE PRAYER IN ALL ACTION. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends. . . . . . - Ralph Waldo Emerson on Self-Reliance
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 12:23:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015