For the first time in a very long time, I am praying again. A lot. I don't know much about prayer and I'm not sure I want formality to be a synonym with the act anymore. In college theology courses, I was taught that conversation with God should follow some sort of structure, some sort of pathological order. I never once believed the theory. And so I gave up on prayer, because academia and pompousness seemed to be inevitably tied to the act.
Now I imagine falling in love with Jesus is the precedent to falling in love with praying. And I imagine crying out in weakness and despair and sometimes anger is actually falling out of pretense and religion and into love. So...maybe prayer looks a lot different that what people label it.
"Oh, God, to know you is life.
To serve You is freedom.
To praise you is the soul's joy and delight.
Guard me with the power of Your grace here and in all places.
Now and at all times, forever. Amen."
"Give me Yourself, O my God,
give Yourself back to me.
I love You, but if my love is too mean,
let me love more passionately.
I cannot gauge my love, nor know how far it fails,
how much more love I need
for my life to set its course straight into Your arms,
never swerving until hidden in the covert of Your face.
This alone I know, that without You all to me is misery,
woe outside myself and woe within,
and all wealth but penury,
if it is not my God."
-St. Augustine
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