Prayer: Magic or True?

I've been blessed to find several posts about prayer today. I am copying the portion of one by Maggie Ross, Anglican solitary, author, and mystic:

"In our desperation to pray for a loved one in crisis or for our own needs and desires, we often feel strongly about what the best outcome should be, and we frame our prayers (and sometimes fill them with bribes) toward this end. These prayers are useful if they help us examine what we think and feel, but our knowledge and understanding of the larger picture, much less the depth of the heart of the person we are praying for, is at best fragmentary and provisional. In reality it is impossible for us to know what will work for the highest good, and unless our prayer is underpinned and ringed about with “Thy will be done” it is no better than magic.

"By contrast, true prayer tries to gather what needs attention and let go of it in the love of God. Or, to use a metaphor that arises from the story of the old man and the rainstorm, prayer creates a space in which things have a chance to work themselves out without being limited or distorted by human pressure or interference (Eph. 3:20)."

Go to Maggie Ross' blog Voice in the Wilderness to read the rest--and explore her other writings.

Another wonderful article is by Gerry May of the Shalem Institute, which is entitled "Trying to Be Contemplative." I first found a reference to it at Carl McColman's blog Anamchara: The Website of Unknowing.

(May wrote:) "Another Lama gave me similar advice. "When you sit down to meditate," he said, "stop trying to meditate. Stop meditating!" A Zen saying also warns, "The stillness you achieve by trying is always in motion." Another says, "Quit trying. Quit trying not to try. Quit quitting!""

Two problems with my prayer is striving and sometimes believing in the magic of it all, instead of sitting and loving God, as Anthony Bloom wrote about. "Thy Will be done."

Whew! Let go, let go!