At 8:00 AM I went into my mother’s backyard for a little faux tai-chi. I stretched until I felt the full extension of every tendon, and the strong wind that blew this mid-November Monday morning provided a soothing symphony of whooshes through the leaves, varying from a frantic flutter of palm fronds to the flitting trittle of the walnut tree standing stalwartly before me. The wood gate creaked, and little birds, which looked like cross-breeds between tiny brown finches and excited hummingbirds, peeped and twittered near by. There was a distant roar as well emanating from the airport a few miles away, but otherwise, the euphony was as organic as my moments were kinesthetically challenging and cardiovascularly invigorating.
Amidst my ad-hoc ballet I realized what prayer and meditation must really be for a lot of people— for the utter calm I experienced during this moment of solitude produced flashes of Jesus Christ ascending the mount to pray and be alone. It was then that I realized that prayer and meditation was consoling, convalescing and rejuvenating because it allows one to get away and be alone. To get away from everyone and all the pressure that others put upon you to be someone who meets and serves their expectations.
For if you take away all the hocus-pocus and the consoling/threatening belief that some ominous power is ultimately in charge or to blame for our lives, it seems to me that when Jesus climbed the hill to pray he just wanted to get away. In a way, he just wanted to stop performing miracles for a moment, as well as stop having to teach others how to live their lives positively. He just needed a little time to himself, away from all the responsibility for helping others become better people and learning to live together harmoniously.
I also subsequently thought that if there is a god one talks to when praying, it is a deity that dwells within one self.
This is why so many great thinkers, artists, writers and scientist have been notoriously anti-social, aloof, or absent-minded, for they spend time on what matters most to them as extraordinary individuals, and are not as concerned about what others think and not as occupied with the welfare of others as well. Einstein, Edison, Whitman, Emerson, Socrates, all of these were men whose religion revered that which emanated and evolved within themselves.
Their ideas and imagination provided the everyday working guidance and scripture by which they discovered and created by. And as they felt unobliged to heed the call of society to be normal within the structure of mediocrity, they were able to achieve extraordinarily.
Hence, I contend that prayers (and meditation somewhat) are nothing than conversations with ourselves, either reinforcing our appreciation for what we have and already cherish, or setting forth in humble supplication the dreams and aspirations that motivate us to achieve something better in this lifetime.
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l.m