Different Ways to Pray by Naomi Shihab Nye There was the method of kneeling, a fine method, if you lived in a country where stones were smooth. The women dreamed wistfully of bleached courtyards, hidden corners where knee fit rock. Their prayers were weathered rib bones, small calcium words uttered in sequence, as if this shedding of syllables could somehow fuse them to the sky. There were the men who had been shepherds so long they walked like sheep. Under the olive trees, they raised their arms— Hear us! We have pain on earth! We have so much pain there is no place to store it! But the olives bobbed peacefully in fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme. At night the men ate heartily, flat bread and white cheese, and were happy in spite of the pain, because there was also happiness. Some prized the pilgrimage, wrapping themselves in new white linen to ride buses across miles of vacant sand. When they arrived at Mecca they would circle the holy places, on foot, many times, they would bend to kiss the earth and return, their lean faces housing mystery. While for certain cousins and grandmothers the pilgrimage occurred daily, lugging water from the spring or balancing the baskets of grapes. These were the ones present at births, humming quietly to perspiring mothers. The ones stitching intricate needlework into children’s dresses, forgetting how easily children soil clothes. There were those who didn’t care about praying. The young ones. The ones who had been to America. They told the old ones, you are wasting your time. Time?—The old ones prayed for the young ones. They prayed for Allah to mend their brains, for the twig, the round moon, to speak suddenly in a commanding tone. And occasionally there would be one who did none of this, the old man Fowzi, for example, Fowzi the fool, who beat everyone at dominoes, insisted he spoke with God as he spoke with goats, and was famous for his laugh. After reading it, I wonder if makes you rethink the way you are invited to pray? Jesus tells us not to prayer in public where everyone can see you, but instead, encourages us to go into a private place, like a closet, to pray. Paul says we are to pray without ceasing. Concerning prayer, Fredrick Buechner writes: “Everybody prays whether [you think] of it as praying or not. The odd silence you fall into when something very beautiful is happening or something very good or very bad. The ah-h-h-h! that sometimes floats up out of you as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the sky-rocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else s pain. The stammer of joy at somebody elses joy. Whatever words or sounds you use for sighing with over your own life. These are all prayers in their way.” Mary Oliver says of prayer: It doesnt have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and dont try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. (Mary Oliver - Thirst) For me, Different Ways to Pray - by Naomi Shihab Nye, speaks to all of the various and sacred ways we are invited to pray in our lives. Thank you, Jody Murad Curley, for sharing this beautiful and thought-filled poem! poetryfoundation.org/poem/178315#.VGyu3snEvYQ.facebook
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 15:51:25 +0000
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